If you ask the average American whether they believe in helping people in other countries — with food, with vaccines, or in the wake of a natural disaster — they will, in all likelihood, say “yes.”
Now ask those same Americans whether the U.S. should be distributing foreign aid. Far fewer will agree it’s worthwhile.
In the months following the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, it’s become clear that there’s been a communications breakdown between what the agency actually did and how the public perceived its work.