A trio of retired top military leaders warned congressional lawmakers this week that major cuts to US foreign aid could embolden China to step in and fill the “void” — allowing the communist state to further its global influence.
The Trump administration moved quickly to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as a part of the president’s cost-cutting crusade when he retook the White House, blasting the government’s main arm for doling out foreign aid as a hotbed of waste and a haven for lefty pet projects overseas.
However, former military leaders are now raising concerns as China has begun rolling out new funding initiatives in countries like Cambodia, which saw USAID funds severed.
“Anytime that we the United States depart an area that we used to be in, either with USAID as a program, or other soft power initiatives, some foes, whether it’s China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, are filling that void,” retired Lt. Gen. John Bednarek told The Post in between meetings on Capitol Hill.
“It’s an area that we need to watch and be very mindful of, from a US foreign policy perspective.”
Bednarek, who served as chief of the United States Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq and former commander of the United States First Army, swung through Capitol Hill Thursday alongside retired Gen. Laura Richardson and retired Vice Admiral John Miller.
The group sat on the US Global Leadership Coalition’s (USGLC) National Security Advisory Council. USGLC advocates for a “strong” budget on foreign affairs and has been critical of the USAID reforms.
It argues that when the US pulls out of foreign initiatives, it leaves a wide gap for foes to fill.
For instance, over a decade ago, China began angling to make diplomatic inroads overseas with its Belt and Road Initiative, in which it provides loans and capital to an assortment of infrastructure projects in developing countries.
This includes investments in Central and South America.
“We’ve got a $3 billion deep water port in the Bahamas that China has funded,” Richardson, formerly the commander of US Southern Command and SAF chief of staff in Afghanistan, explained.
“We’ve got the first mega port in the region that China has build north of Lima Peru,” he added.
“All in the Western Hemisphere, all in our neighborhood.”
Critics have decried those overtures as “debt trap diplomacy,” accusing Beijing of offering loans to poor countries that lack the means to repay them, giving China significant diplomatic leverage.
“I think a lot of countries are sort of catching on to the potential pitfalls of teaming with China, but still, if there’s no one else to team with then that’s who they’re going to team with,” Miller, who led Naval Forces Central Command until 2015, said.
“They don’t have a choice.”
Concerns about China taking advantage of USAID’s demise have festered among US lawmakers.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), for example, has argued that “USAID is our way to combat the Belt and Road Initiative.”
One recent example of this has been China’s announcement several weeks ago that it was funding programs in Cambodia to support children’s development there. In late February, the US had cut off two aid programs, including one for nutrition in children under five and another to boost child literacy.
Beyond countering China, the USGLC trio argued that US foreign aid, including programs outside the traditional USAID umbrella, also helps national security broadly.
“It is creating stability, or creating the conditions for stability, or addressing food hunger, or the spread of disease,” Miller said. “These are all American first interests, because we are the beneficiary of that stability throughout the world.
“[US] strength isn’t just our military,” Miller emphasized. “It’s also our diplomatic strength and it’s our ability to help with the development of allies and partners around the world.”
Richardson also pointed to the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) as one of the foreign aid programs she wishes hadn’t been frozen.
INL helps countries clamp down on their crime and drug problems to prevent those issues from spilling over into the US.
“The transnational organized crime apparatus is very strong and very powerful,” Richardson warned.
USAID had a roughly $40 billion annual budget, which is less than 1% of Uncle Sam’s total spending last year. Trump’s team has highlighted expenses like $2.5 million spent on electric vehicles for Vietnam, $32,000 spent on a “transgender comic book” in Peru, and more as examples of waste and abuse.
“Honestly, yeah, we can be a bit more efficient,” Bednarek acknowledged, saying that some programs “may be eliminated” in favor of programs that are going to benefit the American people.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose department essentially absorbed USAID, has estimated that about 83% of the agency’s programs have been scrapped.
Some of the cuts to USAID and other foreign aid programs are subject to litigation, and there is a possibility that Congress may try to revive some of the initiatives.
Some GOP lawmakers have expressed interest in steering foreign policy dollars from politically charged endeavors and towards more clear-cut humanitarian missions.
“The meetings were very, very, very receptive,” Bednarek recounted of the sessions he and his partners had with a bipartisan assortment of lawmakers.
“It’s not just America first, America not alone, because we are always going to have historically, the need for our allies and partners around the world,” he added. “That requires an investment.”
