Former American presidents Barack Obama And George W. Bush gave rare criticisms open to the Trump administration – and the singer Bono retained tears by reciting a poem – in an emotional video goodbye on Monday with staff of the American agency for international development.
Obama described the dismantling of the Trump administration as Usaid “A colossal error.”
Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the humanitarian and development organization of six decades, created by President John F. Kennedy as a peaceful means of promoting American national security by stimulating good will and prosperity abroad.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered USAID absorbed by the State Department on Tuesday.
The former presidents and Bono spoke with thousands of people in the USAID community in a videoconference, which was presented as a high pressure event to allow political leaders and other confidentiality to sometimes notice angry and often tearful. Video games were shared with the Associated Press.
They expressed their appreciation for the thousands of USAID staff who have lost their jobs and their work of life. Their agency was one of the first and most fiercely targeted for the reduction of the government by President Donald Trump and his billionaire Ally Elon Musk, with members of the staff locked up of systems and offices and ended by mass email.
Trump said the agency was led by “Radical Left Lunatics” and filled with “huge fraud”. Musk called him “a criminal organization”.
Obama, speaking in a registered declaration, offered insurance workers to assistance and development, some listening from abroad.
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“Your work has rated and will have the importance for future generations,” he told them.
Obama largely kept a low public profile during Trump’s second term and has refrained from criticizing the monumental changes Trump has brought to American programs and priorities to the country and abroad.
“The elimination of USAID is a parody, and it is a tragedy. Because it is a most important job that happens all over the world,” said Obama. It has credited the USAID to have not only saved lives, but also a main factor in global economic growth which has transformed certain countries of reception of assistance in American markets and trade partners.
The former Democratic president predicted that “sooner or later, the leaders on both sides of the aisle will realize how much you need.”
When asked for comments, the State Department said that it would present the Department of Foreign Assistance successor to the USAID, to be called America first this week.
“The new process will guarantee that there is appropriate monitoring and that each dollar spent will help advance our national interests,” said the ministry.
USAID has supervised programs around the world, providing water and foods saving millions of people to Sudan, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, sponsoring the “green revolution” that has revolutionized modern agriculture and has slowed down famine and famine, preventing epidemics of disease, promoting democracy, and Get out of the break.
Bush, who also spoke in a recorded message, went directly to the cuts in a historic AIDS and HIV program launched by its republican administration and credited with having saved 25 million lives worldwide.
The return of Bipartisan of Congress to reduce the emergency plan of the Popular President for the relief of AIDS, known as PEPFAR, has helped save significant funding for the program. But reductions and rules have reduced the number of rescue care.
“You have shown the great strength of America through your work – and it’s your good heart,” Bush told USAID employees. »Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died alive? I think it’s the case, and you too, “he said.
Former Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the former Colombian president Juan Manual Santos and the former American ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield also spoke to staff members.
The same goes for humanitarian workers, including the one who spoke of the welcome appearance of USAID employees with food when he had an 8 -year -old child in a liberal refugee camp. A global program official has promised Sobs that the help mission in the United States would be back one day.
Bono, a longtime humanitarian defender in Africa and elsewhere, was announced as “the surprise guest”, in the nuances and a cap.
He joked the staff of USAID staff as “secret international development agents” in recognition of the low nature of the unofficial rally of the USAID community on Monday.
Bono sometimes retained tears by reciting a poem he had written to the agency and his exhaustion. He spoke of children who die of malnutrition, a reference to millions of people who, according to other analysts from the University of Boston, will die because of the American cuts to health funding and other programs abroad.
“They called you crooks. When you were the best of us,” said Bono.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press