Republican Iowa Senator Joni Ernst published a list of projects and programs that, according to them, the American Agency for International Development (USAID) has helped to finance over the years, and emphasizes it as “wasteful and dangerous” expenditure that taxpayers have grabbed the Department of Efficiency of the Government (Doge) came in.
“From the functioning of tax dollars to risky research in Wuhan to sending Ukrainians to Paris Fashion Week, USAID is one of the worst perpetrators of waste in Washington … all over the world,” Post on X on X on X op X op X on X on x on Monday before he rattled a handful of examples.
Ernst emphasized that the agency ‘authorized $ 20 million to create a sesame street in Iraq’.
Under the Biden Administration, USAID has awarded $ 20 million to a non -profit called Sesame workshop To produce a show called “Ahlan Simsim Iraq” in an attempt to promote “inclusion, mutual respect and understanding in ethnic, religious and sectarian groups”.
“While Iraq is recovering from years of conflicts, communities are struggling to find a new sense of normality, while there are physical and emotional wounds,” is an archived link to the USAID website. “The legacy of the conflict of Iraq with the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) left many children without a stable house or displaced, especially those from the ethnic and religious minorities of Iraq. Moreover, Iraqi youth, who more than half Being of the population are unable to find jobs in an economy that is tensioned by war and corruption, creating vulnerabilities for radicalization. ”
The USAID website is closed this week as a doge and tech billionaire Elon Musk Put the desk under his microscope.
‘Viper’s nest’: USAID accused of corruption, mismanagement long before Trump had admin Aim
The show is stylized like the American Kids “Show” Sesam Street “, depicted here, and received financing that started in 2021 and runs until 2027, according to an archived USAID website (Getty Images)
The show is stylized like the American Kids “Show” Sesam Street “and received financing that started in 2021 and runs until 2027, according to the website reached. The show remains broadcast in the Midden -Oost, a review of its website shows.
In another example that Ernst emphasized, USAID turned out to have provided millions of dollars to farmers in Afghanistan in an attempt to grow food instead of poppy fields and opium.
However, the plan was counterproductive and led to an increase in poppy production and therefore opium production, during the war in Afghanistan.
“During the highlight of the war in Afghanistan, USAID issued millions of dollars to help Afghans grow crops instead of opium,” Ernst posted on X Monday. “The results: Opium poppy cultivation throughout the country almost doubled, according to the UN.”
USAID, as well as the US Army, paid farmers to build or rehabilitate kilometers of irrigation channels in the province of Helmand, Afghanistan, during the Obama government in an attempt to convince farmers to grow fruit and other plants, The Washington Post reported in 2019. However, the farmers used the canals to grow poppies.
Poppy production almost doubled during the Afghan war despite the American efforts to curb its growth. (Getty Images)
Poppy -production almost doubled in the region between 2010 and 2014, De Post reported, referring to UN figures.
In another example, Ernst said that USAID spent $ 2 million to finance ‘Moroccan earthenware classes and promotion’. Morocco has created earthenware for thousands of years, dating from 6,000 BC.
Former Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn, who died in 2020, published one Government “Waste Book” in 2012 Details that USAID “started with the pursuit of a four -year plan to improve the economic competitiveness of Morocco” from 2009, including $ 27 million in financing.
Part of the financing was aimed at a program that “Moroccans performed to make and design pottery to sell in domestic and international markets,” the report said.
Morocco has created earthenware for thousands of years, dating from 6,000 BC. (Jorge Fernández/Lighttrocket via Getty images)
However, the American pottery instructor who was hired to teach local artists was unable to communicate with them as a translator for the “Not fluent English” program, according to the waste book.
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“An American pottery instructor has been contracted to give training lessons to local artists for a few weeks to improve their methods and to teach them how to successfully be brought pottery that can be brought to the market,” ” the waste book reported. “Unfortunately, the translator was hired for the sessions not fluently in English and he was unable to transfer large parts of the lectures to the participants.”
USAID “has almost $ 1 million into Batty research into coronaviruses addressed to the Chinese Institute Institute of Virology of China,” claims Senator Joni Ernst, who “admits the CIA was the likely source of Covid-19.” (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty images)
In another example, Ernst added that USAID “has led almost $ 1 million to Batty research into coronaviruses to the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology, the CIA admits that it was the likely source of COVID-19.”
The Government Accountability Office published a report in 2023 that both USAID and the National Institutes of Health Funds for taxpayer to American universities and a non -profit organization pointed before the money found its way to Chinese groups, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The report showed that between 2014 and 2021 the American taxpayer funds were diverted to entities, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Wuhan University and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, which is part of the Chinese Communist Party. The three groups each received more than $ 2 million combined from the US government “to seven subawards,” said the report.
USAID employee says that employees pride flags hidden, ‘stressful’ books when Dog arrived
“The selected entities are government institutions or laboratories in China that perform work on infectious diseases, including pandemic viruses, and have taken actions by federal agencies to tackle safety or safety problems,” the report says. “All three selected Chinese entities have received money.”
In January, under the second Trump administration, the CIA published an updated assessment on the origin of COVID-19, which preferred the theory that the infectious disease was due to a laboratory leak. The CIA had previously maintained that it had insufficient evidence to conclude whether Covid originated in a laboratory or a “wet market” in Wuhan, China.
Ernst claimed in the X -Thread that USAID has also provided money to stimulate tourism to Lebanon and send Ukrainian models to Fashion Week.
“The agency spent $ 2 million promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation where the Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns against trips to” because of crime, terrorism, bourgeois unrest, kidnapping, non -depleted landmines and the risk of reinforced conflict, “” She wrote.
Fashion week in October 2024 in Paris. (Krysty Sparow/Wireimage)
“Usaid spends money as if it literally gets out of fashion,” she wrote. “Trade assistance on Ukraine paid for models and designers to make travel to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week and South by Southwest in Austin.”
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The Trump Government And Doge, which is led by Musk, has placed USAID in the fire brigade during the weekend, while Doge remains cracks by government agencies to rid them of reported too high expenses and corruption.
State Secretary Marco Rubio stated that he is now the acting director of USAID and told the media on Monday that the agency should be brought into line with the policy of “America First” of Trump, including an increased control over the distribution of tax payment funds abroad.
Elon Musk, the chairman of Doge, has given an investigation into the spending practices of USAID when the agency comes to a halt. (Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Musk has hit the desk as a “Viper’s nest or radical-left Marxists who hate America”, and reported on Sunday in a message for audio on X at night that “we are in the process” of “USAID USAID” and that Trump reportedly agreed to close the agency.
Democrats have made the efforts of the Trump government on USAID. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Accused Trump of starting a dictatorship while protesting on Monday outside the headquarters of USAID.
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“It’s a real, really sad day in America. We witness a constitutional crisis,” Omar said. “We talked about Trump who wanted to be a dictator on the first day. And here we are. This is what the beginning of the dictatorship looks like when you lower the constitution, and you install yourself as the only force. That is how dictators are made. “
Brooke Singman and Caitlin McFall from Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
