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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast delivered opening remarks at a full committee hearing on the United States Agency for International Development’s betrayal of America.

WATCH HERE

-Remarks as delivered-

We are here today, very simply, because many of the people and many of the programs in USAID have literally betrayed America. My colleagues to my left will say that I am lying about these programs, and I know they damn well wish that I was lying. The programs USAID and the State Department have spent money on are indefensible, they hurt America’s standing around the globe, and I think the fact is clear that America would have been better off if your money had been simply thrown into a fireplace.

Instead, the Biden administration spent it imposing their far-left-wing ideology onto other nations. Under them, USAID spent:

– $2 million for sex change surgeries in Guatemala.

– $22 million to increase tourism in Tunisia and Egypt, that’s not lifesaving.

– $520 million to pay consultants to teach people in Africa about climate change, that’s not medicine.

– $4.5 million to teach people in Kazakhstan how to fight back against internet trolls, that’s not lifesaving.

–  $20,000 to help LGTB individuals vote in the Honduran elections, that’s not medicine.

–  $5.5 million to improve the lives of LGBT individuals in Uganda.

–  $14 million to identify LGBT leaders in Cambodia.

–  $425,000 to train Indonesian coffee companies on how to be more gender friendly.

–  $15 million for condoms to the Taliban.

And I have pages and pages more. That is not diplomacy. It’s a slap in the face to every American who got up this morning and went to work. To this moment, you haven’t seen or heard any of my colleagues on the left apologizing for this being wrong or wasteful.

Instead, their biggest concern is that the person assembling a team to make sure these programs are not funded is a billionaire named Elon Musk. They’re so out of touch; they think these programs are bringing other countries closer to us and our adversaries are going to get a foothold if these programs don’t continue.

That is not what competing looks like for the United States of America. On the contrary, last month when I participated in a Q&A with my colleague here to the left in the U.S. Institute of Peace, which will have to explain their funding, the Ugandan Ambassador stood up and said these programs were not doing anything to improve relations between our nations.

Take a look at the video.

These programs will not continue. They’re going to come to an end. Yet my colleagues to the left are arguing for these programs to continue, arguing for the people who put these programs in place to go back to work, and arguing for the agency that did this to continue wasting your money.

They’re going to argue that President Trump doesn’t have the authority to do this, but the fact is of those who were in Congress, all but three of them, voted to give him the authority in 2024. It says very specifically in SFOPS Appropriations Act that the administration may potentially “expand, eliminate, consolidate, or downsize covered departments, agencies, or organizations.” That’s the language of the authority.

It’s not just the content of USAID that is the betrayal. It’s the larceny that USAID has conducted. Crooked NGOs around Washington, D.C. swindling American taxpayers out of their money. A recent audit found that USAID’s implementing partners were using as much as 50% of their grant for overhead costs not lifesaving measures.

The administration has said that the aid pause is temporary, and they have proven it. The recipients of USAID programs, they can apply for a waiver. I have a list with me. Many have applied. Many have been denied and some have received wavers that proved that their work was lifesaving.

Let me give a warning to my colleagues, it will be short-sighted of you to turn a blind eye to USAID’s betrayal and more broadly to the betrayal within the State Department. Because we are going to bring in the people who put these programs in place. We are going to show to the American people exactly what they were doing. The videos, the documents, the everything. They are going to see it.

Like $25,000 for a drag show seminar for Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador and we are going to show you that video.

We will be writing these programs out of law as we conduct our first full State Department review since 2002.

I would say that when done right, foreign aid can be one of the best tools. It can help strengthen our relationships with our allies that need a hand up and it can help countries realize that America is the best partner.

But it is only true if we understand a couple of things:

– What does America actually need from each country or region?

– What does that country or region actually want from the United States of America? Because it’s not these things.

– And it’s only fair to Americans if we can prove that a dollar better spent going abroad than staying in the pocket of an American who is right now hustling and grinding it out of work.