Created by executive order at the height of the Cold War, the United States Agency for International Development was originally intended to fight the spread of communism by helping countries develop liberal market democracies. While the agency could be a key asset in countering the influence of the Chinese Communist Party throughout the developing world, it has instead been subsumed by an aid industrial complex consisting of international nongovernmental organizations, self-dealing politicians, and for-profit contractors.

President Donald Trump was right to bring the agency under democratic control, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the man needed to realign its actions with the national interest of the U.S.