daniel chigunwe
Tichaona Zindoga
Herald Correspondent
From China to Zimbabwe; Latin America to Eastern Europe, the United States has for over half a century been interfering in the internal affairs of other countries using dirty money siphoned from American taxpayers to serve narrow interests, destabilise countries and whole regions.
Now, the Trump administration is likely to stop it all.
Elon Musk, appointed by president Donald Trump to oversee a new agency called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been working to dismantle some of the US entrenched bureaucracies that have not only become anachronistic in 2025, but also responsible for misuse of US money in operations that, all considered, severely compromised America’s relations with other countries.
Recently, Musk has described the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as a “criminal organisation” and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as a “scam”.
Both are now on the brink of being shut down; the latest news in the media being that USAID has stopped workers from reporting for duty, while overseas-based operatives have been recalled to the US.
This has become a hot topic, part of the ongoing funding cut by the administration of Trump whose key philosophy is derived from his “America First” strategy.
At a superfluous level, cutting aid means stopping America from assisting countries in the developing world and preventing them from getting aid and assistance to fight hunger and disease or supporting democracy, promoting human rights and liberal values.
However, there has always been a deeper, sinister agenda that the so-called “American aid” has served, namely a sophisticated machinery to loot funds by elites controlling organisations like USAID and NED and obsessively pursuing ideologies at the expense of building meaningful relations and markets for America – which countries that have been targeted such as China and Zimbabwe have long decried.
The nefarious activities of US organisations have extensively been written about it. In March last year, Zimbabwe deported four USAID operatives, Brenda Lee Pearson, Norma Kriger, Sarah Logan and Loretta Bass who came under the cover of a US government affiliate, Navanti Group, and their mission was ostensibly to carry out a “democracy and governance assessment” to help the organisation design its local programmes. Local media reported that the team was busted and deported on February 17 after their real agenda or effecting regime change was established.
The bust sent a huge statement about Zimbabwe’s concern over activities of USAID, and Zimbabwe has been keeping a wary eye on similar outfits.
Last August, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China published a paper stating that NED had long engaged in subverting state power in other countries, meddling in other countries’ internal affairs, inciting division and confrontation, misleading public opinion, and conducting ideological infiltration, all under the pretext of promoting democracy.
“Its innumerable evil deeds have caused grave harm and drawn strong condemnation from the international community,” the paper said.
It added: “In recent years, NED has kept changing tactics and gone even further in acting against the historical trend of peace, development and win-win cooperation. It has become more notorious for its infiltration, subversion and sabotage attempts against other countries. It is imperative to unmask NED and alert all countries to the need to see through its true colours, guard against and fight back its disruption and sabotage attempts, safeguard their national sovereignty, security and development interests, and uphold world peace and development and international fairness and justice.”
Things have just come to a head.
On Monday, Elon Musk held a live session on X Spaces, saying he had spoken in detail about USAID with President Trump. “He agreed we should shut it down,” Musk said.
He said: “It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in. What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair . . . We’re shutting it down.”
There was drama before that, when USAID officials tried to deny Musk’s DOGE team access to “sensitive data”, including funding activities. The fallout saw the administration place two USAID security chiefs, namely director for security John Vorhees and deputy director for security Brian McGill on leave.
Earlier, on Sunday, Musk had written on X that, “USAID is a criminal organisation. Time for it to die.”
And on the same day he wrote: “NED is a SCAM”, prompting a spirited debate about the organisation whose work has been described as “doing overtly what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) does covertly”.
A few hours earlier, in another post, Musk had stated that “NED is RIFE with CORRUPTION,” inviting users to reply with a list of ‘evil’ actions linked to the organisation.
End of an era?
USAID was originally established to support economic and social development in the developing world. A brainchild of President John F. Kennedy, the goal was to unite development into a single agency responsible for administering aid to foreign countries to promote social and economic development.
However, over the years, it has become a key tool for advancing US geopolitical objectives. In many African countries, including Zimbabwe, USAID funding has been funnelled into civil society organisations (CSOs) that have positioned themselves as “pro-democracy” groups, but in practice, have worked to undermine elected governments.
It is a widely shared view that for decades, US foreign aid, particularly through the USAID, has served a dual purpose, an overt one; and a sinister agenda. (Interestingly it emerged this week that USAID used HIV workshops in Cuba as cover to recruit anti-government activists).
While often presented as humanitarian assistance, much of this aid has been channelled through international NGOs and CSOs that engage in political activism under the guise of promoting democracy and human rights.
The Trump administration’s push to reform USAID, could mark a turning point in reducing Washington’s interference in African affairs, including countries like Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has long accused USAID-backed NGOs of supporting opposition movements under the pretext of promoting human rights.
Organisations receiving US funding have been involved in activities that go beyond “civil society work”, including election monitoring with a clear bias, organising anti-government protests, and funding media narratives that align with US foreign policy interests rather than the priorities of the Zimbabwean people.
On the other hand, the NED was originally conceived in 1981, when US President Ronald Reagan came into office and intended to promote his “Project Democracy” abroad, and proposed a government-funded and privately-run foundation to openly support “democratic movements abroad.”
One of the purposes of NED, when it was created in 1983, was to encourage the establishment and growth of democratic development in a manner consistent both with the broad concerns of US national interests and with the specific requirements of the democratic groups in other countries which are aided by programmes funded by NED.
NED has grown in both funding – with the Congress providing US$18 million annual budget to US$315 million in 2023; as well as in various nefarious activities around the world. These include:
Cultivating pro-US forces in target countries
Misrepresenting the human rights situation in other countries
Manipulating and interfering in other countries’ elections
Inciting division and confrontation to undermine the stability of other countries
Fabricating false information to mislead public opinion
Using “academic activities” as a cloak for interference and infiltration
Victims of this interference include, but not limited to, Iran, North African Arab countries, Ukraine, Haiti, North Korea, Mexico, Serbia, Philippines, Nigeria, Iraq, Kosovo and Zimbabwe – of course. Curiously, all these categories of activities have been implemented in Zimbabwe over the past two decades, and they constitute ceaseless regime change attempts by the West.
NED programmes are run under the guidance of the US State Department and embassies abroad.
NED should consult with the State Department on its programme plans to seek foreign policy guidance.
According to a USAID report titled “Democracy Promotion Programmes Funded by the US Government,” NED consults on an ongoing basis with the State Department, through the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, with USAID and with US embassies abroad on programmatic matters?
NED reports to the US government on its work and accepts audit and oversight by the government.
NED is obliged to submit to the US president an annual report for the preceding fiscal year no later than December 31 of each year. The report should include NED’s operations, activities and accomplishments. Audit of NED is conducted annually by the US Government General Accounting Office.
A report of each audit shall be made to the Congress, and a copy of each report shall be furnished to the President.
Under president Trump, NED, like other outfits as USAID represents wasteful expenditure, which will likely see these cut down or shut completely.
A criminal and a scam
Musk’s description of USAID and NED in criminal terms is well grounded. The two organisations’ funding for local activities has been abused by various NGOs, civil society groups and the opposition party outfits that the US supported to effect regime change.
In fact, a whole regime change industry of NGOs developed in the country based on US funding through USAID, NED, the Open Society Foundations and so on, but while they received funding for democratisation purposes, this money has ended up in private pockets of NGO bosses. The civil society scam is also manifest in the organisations spending the majority of programme funds on administration costs (that is, taking care of officials) while only a fraction goes to the Zimbabwean people for whom these funds were intended.
It has also to be made clear that, the US and other donor countries channel such resources through NGOs to supplant and subvert Government by providing alternative sources for health, education and livelihoods at a time that Zimbabwe was placed under sanctions that curtail its ability to provide for the people.
But NGO and opposition party bosses have scammed American and European donor countries and agencies in a big way. One American official stated a few years ago that given the amount of money that poured into Zimbabwe, the goal of regime change could have been achieved already.
The difference between the funding and the outcomes is essentially what the whole scam is all about – and Musk is right. It is not surprising that local American-linked NGOs, US Embassy (State Department) officials and their criminal networks were afraid of a Trump administration, preferring the Democrats who have not only stuffed the outfits like NED and USAID but also engineered various schemes and ideologies to steal money from American people in the name of promoting democracy in places like Zimbabwe.
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