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As President Donald Trump’s administration targets the U.S. Agency for International Development for closure or major downsizing, the White House and social media posts have highlighted four projects as examples of the agency’s “waste and abuse.” But only one was funded by USAID.
We’ll explain the programs and provide context on USAID’s total budget.
Trump’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — led by billionaire Elon Musk — swung its focus to USAID in late January. The agency was created in 1961 and charged with carrying out foreign social and economic development projects. It “provides assistance to strategically important countries and countries in conflict; leads U.S. efforts to alleviate poverty, disease, and humanitarian need; and assists U.S. commercial interests by supporting developing countries’ economic growth and building countries’ capacity to participate in world trade,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
“USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, on Feb. 2. “Time for it to die.”
The following day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was appointed the acting administrator of USAID. The agency’s website was taken down, and on Feb. 7, it showed a notice that said: “On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”
In response to a lawsuit filed by organizations representing USAID workers, a federal judge on Feb. 7 temporarily blocked the Trump administration from immediately placing more than 2,000 workers on administrative leave. As of Feb. 8, the website was blank.
It is unclear what the future of USAID will be. The Congressional Research Service wrote in a Feb. 3 memo that the agency was created as an independent establishment within the executive branch and “the President does not have the authority to abolish it.”
More than 100 House Democrats signed a letter dated Feb. 4 raising the same point to Rubio. “By law, USAID is an independent entity separate from the State Department, and any changes to that structure would require legislative approval from Congress,” it said.
The White House has publicized claims about the agency to justify its action. In a statement issued on Feb. 3, it listed several programs it claimed were funded by USAID and said, “For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.”
Later that day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted four that she said were emblematic of “the waste and abuse that has run through USAID over the past several years”: “$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces, $70,000 for production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.”
“I don’t know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going toward this crap,” Leavitt said. “And I know the American people don’t either. That’s exactly what Elon Musk has been tasked by President Trump to do, to get the fraud, waste, and abuse out of our federal government.”
A clip of that portion of her comments was shared widely on social media — the version shared by the White House’s “Rapid Response 47” account on X garnered more than a million views, alone. Other posts shared lists of projects that included the four highlighted by Leavitt.
But some of those projects weren’t described accurately. And only the first was funded by USAID; the rest were funded by the State Department. Each of the projects highlighted represents a relatively small amount of money — the entire amount managed by USAID was about $40 billion in fiscal year 2023 (the most recent year with complete data), according to a Congressional Research Service report. That amount is less than 1% of the total federal budget.
Whether or not these programs demonstrate “waste and abuse,” as described by the Trump administration, is a matter of opinion. We’ll lay out what we know about each one.
Serbian ‘DEI’ Project
An LGBTQ advocacy organization in Serbia — a country that fares poorly compared with other European countries on measures of LGBTQ rights, according to data from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights — hosted a three-year program aimed at improving the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the workplace.
From February 2023 to October 2024, USAID committed to spending about $1.5 million — in three roughly $500,000 installments — to support the program.
At a program conference in September 2023, mission director for USAID in Serbia, Brooke Isham, said, “At USAID, we know that inclusive development is important for driving economic growth and also for creating a healthier democracy.”
A ‘DEI Musical’ in Ireland
The State Department committed to provide $70,844 in September 2022 to an Irish organization called Ceiliuradh, which is part of the Irish South Wind Blows production company. The money wasn’t for a “musical,” but rather a musical event.
That company’s musical component, called Other Voices, put together a program called “Other Voices: Dignity – Towards a More Equitable Future” for the U.S. Embassy in Dublin on Sept. 15, 2022.
The announcement for the event said it “will showcase the very best of American and Irish talent with a diverse programme which aims to fulfil the U.S. Embassy Dublin’s mission to promote diversity, inclusion, and equality.”
The event was streamed live on YouTube and featured several Irish and American artists.
USAID isn’t listed as providing any money for the event.
A ‘Transgender Opera’ in Colombia
On April 28, 2022, the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, put on a performance of the opera “As One.” The show, which was written in the U.S. and debuted in 2014, features a transgender protagonist.
A program for the university’s production of the opera said the show had the support of the university, the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra and the “Small Grants Program of the Embassy of the United States in Colombia.”
The Department of State committed $25,000 to fund the project, and the website USAspending.gov also noted that there was $22,020 of “non-federal funding” for the project, making a total of $47,020 listed on the site. The federal funding for this project also came from the State Department, not USAID.
A ‘Transgender Comic Book’ in Peru
In 2021, the U.S. Embassy in Peru introduced a comic book called “The Power of Education,” which it used to promote education and exchange programs in the U.S.
The following year, the embassy commissioned a second volume.
“The Embassy asked us to introduce a gay student in #2 to show his personal struggle coming out to his parents, but that has zero to do with being transgender,” David Campiti, who owns the company that produced the comic book, told us in an email. “The comics were about scholarships and furthering education.”
The series ended up including three comic books, each one showing an aspect of cultural exchange and education. View them here, here and here.
The second one is what was highlighted by the Trump administration as a “transgender comic book.” But volume 2 of “The Power of Education” does not include a transgender character. Rather, as Campiti said, it featured a hero who was gay.
The writer of the comic, David Lawrence, said the same thing in a post on his Facebook page on Feb. 4, explaining why the embassy had requested an LGBTQ character. “The US embassy in Peru requested that as a small response to anti gay prejudice in the country,” he wrote.
We reached out to the embassy for comment and were referred to the State Department, which did not respond to us.
Like the first volume, the second one was used to promote education and exchange programs. And, incidentally, it won two awards in 2023, including comic of the year, from a Peruvian organization called Chronicles of Diversity.
The funding for this project didn’t come from USAID, either, but, again, from the State Department.
So, funding for three of the four projects highlighted by the White House came from the State Department for funding cultural activities on behalf of various embassies.
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