When President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing US foreign aid for 90 days, the move was framed as a “review” to align aid with “American interests” and purge programs deemed antithetical to “American values”.
For USAID—the $42-billion-a-year agency that has shaped global development since 1961—this was an existential blow.
But while panic rippled through aid-dependent circles in Africa, I found myself asking: Who really needs whom here?
Some of the work that USAID has done over the decades is undeniably transformative. In Tanzania, its programmes have saved lives.
PEPFAR, the US HIV/Aids initiative, has provided antiretroviral therapy to over 1.4 million Tanzanians since 2004, slashing HIV-related deaths by 60 percent.
The RTP project by EngenderHealth reached 2.3 million Tanzanians with family planning services, empowering women and reducing maternal mortality.
Globally, USAID has vaccinated millions, fed famine-stricken regions, and funded infrastructure.
But when you dig deeper, the cracks start to emerge. USAID is, first and foremost, a tool of US foreign policy. Its “altruism” is laced with political strings.
Take climate change: While Western nations—responsible for up to 70 percent of historical carbon emissions since the Industrial Revolution—lecture Africa (which contributes 3 percent) on renewable energy, thus nations such as Tanzania are pressured to abandon coal projects.
Meanwhile, China derives 60 percent of its energy from coal, and Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” policies prioritise American fossil fuels.
Why must Tanzania—with 36 percent electrification—shoulder climate change burdens while the US and China, by far the world’s biggest polluters today, are going gung-ho on CO2 emissions?
The White House’s 2025 report on USAID’s “waste and abuse” reads like satire: $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia, $1.5 million to promote “diversity equity” in Serbia, and $2 million for “sex changes and LGBT activism” in Guatemala.
In Tanzania, such ideological overreach clashes with local values. Why impose divisive Western social experiments on nations which clearly have more pressing matters to focus on? And how does that advance American interests, anyway?
Worse, much of the money never reaches its intended recipients. A former World Bank officer once informed me about a Tanzania-based project where 80 percent of over a million-dollar fund was spent on Western consultants and overheads—before a single dollar reached Tanzania.
According to the Trump’s government, in some cases only 10 percent of funds reach their intended recipients. This isn’t aid: Trump is justified to put to an end that self-serving scam.
Worse still, USAID’s approach to aid reeks of paternalism. Trump announced that Saudi Arabia would invest $500 billion in US tech, AI, and industries—sectors that create wealth.
But here, USAID funnels cash into livelihood support and family planning.
Where are the investments in Tanzania’s Mtwara Corridor, a region rich in coal, iron, uranium, and fertile land capable of generating billions of dollars annually?
Where is the support for the 800km SGR railway linking Mtwara to Mbamba Bay, a project that could unlock trade across Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia?
The answer is simple: this aid isn’t designed to empower. It’s designed to keep Africa just stable enough to remain a perpetual client.
We can do better than entertaining such schemes. Tanzania needs partners, not patrons giving us handouts.
Consider remittances: In 2023, Tanzanians abroad sent home $747 million, far surpassing USAID’s annual contributions.
If we can increase that from 1 percent to regional averages, about 4 percent of GDP, alongside strategic investments in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and energy – including in coal – we could end dependency overnight.
The Mtwara Corridor alone holds enough coal reserves to power East Africa. Tanzania’s avocado exports hit $73 million in 2023—a figure that could multiply tenfold with irrigation and processing hubs. Yet USAID prioritises “gender workshops” over agro-industrial zones.
On our side, we need to review our approach to philanthropy. Tanzania hosts over 8,000 NGOs, but most are inept and unsustainable.
It is not uncommon to find an NGO boasting an extensive network of members, but they cannot pay even a couple of employees without foreign grants.
The writings have been on the wall for years. Covid-19 exposed this fragility even further: When Western funds dried up, many NGOs collapsed. Dependency tends to kill innovation.
Trump’s freeze is a wake-up call. While USAID sold itself as Africa’s lifeline, in reality, it’s America’s tool for geopolitical relevance.
Africa doesn’t need lectures on climate change from polluters, gender theories from Western liberals, or aid that enriches Western consultants.
We have the resources. What we lack is the leadership and the audacity to say: Enough.
Let Trump defund USAID. Let him “Put America first.” He is the American President after all.
Meanwhile, let us respond by putting Tanzania first: let’s build coal plants, iron mines, railways, and avocado empires of notice.
By the time the US ends its internal political squabbles, we would have moved on—free to pursue our agenda without sanctimonious lectures about issues which even Westerners themselves are fighting about.
Trump is good for Africa in so many ways.
