State Department officials are using foreign aid to support “left-leaning political groups” around the world, to the annoyance of foreign officials, according to a group of Republican senators.
American diplomats have used USAID grants to shape “the media environment and civil society” of foreign countries, including those such as Macedonia that occupy a delicate space on the world stage. The recipients of the grants, such as Open Societies Foundation, which is also supported by liberal billionaire George Soros, use the money “to push a progressive agenda and invigorate the political left,” the senators wrote.
“We must take this critical moment — at the start of a new administration — to review how all our tax dollars are being utilized in order to halt activities that are fomenting political unrest, disrespecting national sovereignty and civil society, and ultimately undermine our attempts to build beneficial international relationships,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, wrote to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a Tuesday letter. It was also signed by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, David Perdue of Georgia, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis.
They sent the letter as the State Department faces dramatic funding decreases under President Trump’s expected budget proposal, and foreign aid is especially likely to be chopped. The letter builds on previous complaints to the State Department but focuses in this case on Macedonia and Albania.
Macedonia, in particular, is going through a political crisis that has become an occasion for Russia to accuse the United States of meddling in foreign countries’ affairs.
Lee made a similar charge, based on different reasons. “Over the past few months, elected officials and political leaders of foreign nations have been coming to me with disappointing news and reports of U.S. activity in their respective countries,” Lee said in a statement accompanying the letter. “This includes reports of diplomats playing political favorites, USAID funds supporting extreme and sometimes violent political activists, and the U.S. government working to marginalize the moderates and conservatives in leadership roles. This sort of political favoritism from our missions around the world is unacceptable and endangers our bilateral relationships.”
Macedonia is a hot topic in the Balkans, as a corruption scandal led to an election that produced a parliament in which no party held enough votes to form a government. When the second-place finisher formed a coalition with an Albanian minority party that could be expected to lean towards Western powers, the president of Macedonia — with the support of Russia — declined to allow them to form a government. And Russia took aim at western leaders.
“Outside interference in the internal affairs of the Republic of Macedonia is taking more and more outrageous forms,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “Despite all the manipulations, the opposition, openly supported by the European Union and the United States, had to face a defeat.”
Those comments worry some lawmakers, who hear echoes of the rhetoric Russia employed in the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine. “At the very least you can imagine them playing a provocative role,” Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., told the Washington Examiner.
The group of Republicans argued that a reform of the foreign aid programs will help the United States by diminishing Russian influence in some countries.
“The most damaging consequence of the United States weighing in so heavily on one side of the political spectrum abroad is that we ostracize many foreign citizens who have traditionally supported strong relations with the United States,” they said. “Such division allows aggressive opportunists like Russia space to operate and cause further damage.”
