George W Bush has issued a rare critique of Donald Trump over his shuttering of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The former president joined Barack Obama and U2 singer Bono in an emotional video call farewell with staff at the agency on Monday when it officially ceased operations.
After six decades, the humanitarian organisation created by former president John F Kennedy to promote US national security by boosting prosperity and goodwill abroad, is being absorbed into the State Department under the supervision of Marco Rubio.
Speaking to thousands of agency staff on the video conference, Mr Bush took a thinly veiled swipe at cuts to USAID’s HIV and aids programme. The initiative, launched under his Republican administration, is credited with saving 25 million lives around the world.
“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work – and that is your good heart,’’ Mr Bush told agency staffers in a recorded message. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”
USAID was one of the first agencies fiercely targeted by Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) cuts to government spending, with Elon Musk branding it a “criminal organisation”.
Pushback from Congress against Doge cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids (Pepfar) helped salvage significant funding to the programme.
However, the WHO has warned that Mr Trump’s decision to pause US foreign aid could cause several countries to run out of HIV treatment in the coming months.
Mr Obama, who has kept a low profile during Mr Trump’s second term and refrained from directly criticising the president’s radical overhaul of government, described the dismantling of USAID as a “colossal mistake”.
“Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come,” the former president told agency staff.
“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” he added, praising government workers for saving lives and opening new US markets by boosting economic growth overseas.
The Democrat went on to predict that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realise how much you are needed.”
Bono, a long term advocate for humanitarian aid across the world was announced as a surprise guest and held back tears as he recited a poem he had written to the agency.
He said: “They called you crooks. When you were the best of us.”
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