President Donald Trump may have thought that defunding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) would only hurt foreigners -- but it turns out he could actually be mistaken.The Washington Post reports that shuttering the agency entirely "threatens billions of dollars the agency spends o...

Summary

Trump’s move to defund USAID is causing unintended consequences for American farmers and businesses.

The Washington Post reports that USAID purchases billions in U.S. agricultural products, with American farms supplying 41% of its food aid.

The funding freeze has already halted $340 million in food shipments, leaving tons of wheat stranded in Houston.

Experts warn this decision directly harms American jobs and businesses, as much of USAID’s aid is administered through U.S.-based organizations employing American workers.

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    28·
    12 hours ago

    … “government doesn’t do anything for ME” as an actual thing you believe.

    This happens because people take completely for granted all of the things government quietly does for them.

    It’s kind of the same as “Why do we even have an IT department? Everything works, what are they even doing?”

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      54 minutes ago

      Such an apt analogy - this actually happens all the time in corporations. IT tends to just get treated as a cost center, most especially if everything is running smoothly. Stupid people at companies will often just look at the price of that and think it’s time to fuck with it…

      It’s almost the same thing with vaccines. A whole lot of dumbasses think vaccines “never did them no good”, because vaccines are a victim of their own success, and most people alive today have not really seen how bad it can get without them [1].

      Idiots can then try to pin the state of health we have, largely thanks to vaccines, on other things like septic systems, “eating healthy”, etc…

      [1] I’ve anecdotally noticed that for the most part, you didn’t see older generations going for that anti-vax shit. It seems to have started with some (younger) boomers, a lot of Gen-Xers and on down. But again, that’s because it’s an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of thing. Some of the older people (like Greatest Generation) saw how life can be incredibly cruel w/o vaccines…sadly, all that wisdom is dying out and our education system sucks, so this wisdom was not passed on to enough people. Critical thinking is probably as bad as ever, and we are probably on the verge of FAFO…