Why merging USAID into State would undermine U.S. strategic interests

In the last few days, the media has reported the chaos—unprecedented actions without regard for the individual, national, and international consequences—resulting from the Trump administration’s preemptive actions on foreign assistance, causing serious damage at both the human level and the U.S. reputation as a reliable ally.

On day one, the administration precipitously suspended new obligations and disbursement of foreign assistance. A few days later it summarily dismissed the senior career leadership and then thousands of mid-level staff from USAID, essentially preventing the agency from carrying out its legislative mandated responsibilities. These decisions impact the livelihoods of thousands of Americans who manage our critical foreign assistance programs and tens of thousands of citizens in developing countries who either implement or are the beneficiaries of U.S. assistance—in many situations, depriving individuals of lifesaving medical care.

The damage to the U.S. reputation and image is so great that China and Russia do not have to do anything to benefit from this self-inflicted wound.

The law

In addition, the administration appears to be in the process, contrary to law and without the consent of Congress, of moving USAID into the Department of State. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 established USAID as an independent agency with, what in an org chart would be represented by a dotted line, the administrator receiving foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State.

More recently, section 7036 of the 2024 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, states explicitly that Congress prohibits:

… reorganization, redesign, or other plan described in subsection (b) by the Department of State, the United States Agency for International Development, or any other Federal department, agency, or organization funded by this Act without prior consultation by the head of such department, agency, or organization with the appropriate congressional committees. …

We have seen this act before, in the mid/late 1990s and again in 2017. During the Clinton Administration, Senator Jessie Helms led an effort to merge the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), and USAID into the Department of State. This occurred in the context of extensive and informed discussions within and between the two branches of government. The outcome was the 1998 law that folded ACDA and USIA into the State Department and statutorily established USAID as an independent agency.

In 2017, when the first Trump Administration was reported to be contemplating moving USAID into State, multiple organizations and experts reviewed alternatives of how to best organize the government to carry out foreign assistance and came up with innovative and thoughtful proposals—see here and here—which concluded that it was best to maintain a strong and independent American global development agency.

Why separate structures for diplomacy and development

Development and diplomacy are instruments designed to advance our national interests. They often pursue interlocking objectives, but have different missions, expertise, cultures, and timelines.

Diplomacy, development, and defense are the three-legged stool upon which the U.S. national security strategy rests. While sharing the same overall goal—advancing U.S. strategic interests in the world—their specific missions and how they function are quite different. Each requires well-trained professionals with differing expertise.

Diplomacy seeks closer relations with foreign governments so as to encourage alignment with U.S. foreign policy. USAID’s mission is to advance development, which requires working not just with government but also with civil society and business communities to advance the multiple nodes of economic, political, and social activity that comprise the complex nature of society. Diplomacy tends to have a short time and transactional horizon while development a medium/long-term horizon with emphasis on evaluating the achievement of results, sometimes putting the two missions at odds and limiting their ability to function well in the same organization.

Because USAID’s main focus is program design and oversight, most of the workforce is trained in specific sector expertise, like health, education, agriculture, and the management, compliance, and monitoring required to ensure programs are executed in a cost-effective and accountable way. USAID programs often extend throughout a country, allowing local staff and partners to have reach beyond capitals (the focus of diplomacy), which allows for deeper understanding of countries and communities and building relations at all layers of society.

As clearly explained in a blog by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition in 2017:

In practice, this means that the State Department is primarily concerned with state-to-state relations with foreign governments and short-term goals that enhance American security, while USAID often has closer ties with the broader population whose health, education, and economic prosperity are the focus of U.S. foreign assistance, with the goal of fostering long-term stability and economic growth in a country.

The folding of the foreign aid program into the foreign ministries of Canada and Australia has been assessed to have undercut the development function. Likewise, with the merger of the highly respected U.K. independent Department of International Development (DFID) with the Foreign Ministry into the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the U.K. government lost expertise in program expertise and accountability.

As articulated by Andrew Natsios, administrator of USAID in the George W. Bush administration, in distinguishing between USAID and the Department of State:

… beyond that they are dissimilar in every important way: The tasks they perform, what they value, their operating principles and how they carry out their work are profoundly different. 

Combining the two institutions would be comparable to merging Microsoft with ExxonMobil. And if this forced marriage were to occur, rather than creating “efficiencies,” it would make our development programs less effective and our emergency relief less responsive, while detrimentally politicizing our foreign aid.

The corporate rule is to separate disparate activities—in this case, defense, diplomacy, and development—into separate entities so as to have clear lines of authority and accountability. Following that practice, the smart and clear-cut reform actually would be to move all development programs into USAID so State can focus on its core mission of foreign policy and diplomacy.

Congress

There is a regular process for changing the structures of the executive branch. In the past, Congress has given administrations reorganization authority, under which the president proposes modifications to bureaucratic organizations in consultation with the Congress.

But until it deems otherwise, the Congress must insist that the administration uphold the law by maintaining the statutorily required independence of USAID—and that its staff be allowed to carry out the congressionally mandated responsibility to execute the foreign assistance policies and resources the Congress has authorized.