Cutting outrageous spending is a good idea, no matter how inconsequential some say it is.

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As President Donald Trump’s administration targets the U.S. Agency for International Development for closure or major downsizing, the White House and social media posts have highlighted four projects as examples of the agency’s “waste and abuse.” But only one was funded by USAID.

We’ll explain the programs and provide context on USAID’s total budget.

A worker removes the U.S. Agency for International Development sign on its headquarters on Feb. 7 in Washington, D.C. Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images.

Trump’s newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — led by billionaire Elon Musk — swung its focus to USAID in late January. The agency was created in 1961 and charged with carrying out foreign social and economic development projects. It “provides assistance to strategically important countries and countries in conflict; leads U.S. efforts to alleviate poverty, disease, and humanitarian need; and assists U.S. commercial interests by supporting developing countries’ economic growth and building countries’ capacity to participate in world trade,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

“USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, on Feb. 2. “Time for it to die.”

The following day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was appointed the acting administrator of USAID. The agency’s website was taken down, and on Feb. 7, it showed a notice that said: “On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”

In response to a lawsuit filed by organizations representing USAID workers, a federal judge on Feb. 7 temporarily blocked the Trump administration from immediately placing more than 2,000 workers on administrative leave. As of Feb. 8, the website was blank.

It is unclear what the future of USAID will be. The Congressional Research Service wrote in a Feb. 3 memo that the agency was created as an independent establishment within the executive branch and “the President does not have the authority to abolish it.”

More than 100 House Democrats signed a letter dated Feb. 4 raising the same point to Rubio. “By law, USAID is an independent entity separate from the State Department, and any changes to that structure would require legislative approval from Congress,” it said.

The White House has publicized claims about the agency to justify its action. In a statement issued on Feb. 3, it listed several programs it claimed were funded by USAID and said, “For decades, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been unaccountable to taxpayers as it funnels massive sums of money to the ridiculous — and, in many cases, malicious — pet projects of entrenched bureaucrats, with next-to-no oversight.”

Later that day, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted four that she said were emblematic of “the waste and abuse that has run through USAID over the past several years”: “$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces, $70,000 for production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.”

“I don’t know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going toward this crap,” Leavitt said. “And I know the American people don’t either. That’s exactly what Elon Musk has been tasked by President Trump to do, to get the fraud, waste, and abuse out of our federal government.”

A clip of that portion of her comments was shared widely on social media — the version shared by the White House’s “Rapid Response 47” account on X garnered more than a million views, alone. Other posts shared lists of projects that included the four highlighted by Leavitt.

But some of those projects weren’t described accurately. And only the first was funded by USAID; the rest were funded by the State Department. Each of the projects highlighted represents a relatively small amount of money — the entire amount managed by USAID was about $40 billion in fiscal year 2023 (the most recent year with complete data), according to a Congressional Research Service report. That amount is less than 1% of the total federal budget.

Whether or not these programs demonstrate “waste and abuse,” as described by the Trump administration, is a matter of opinion. We’ll lay out what we know about each one.

Serbian ‘DEI’ Project

An LGBTQ advocacy organization in Serbia — a country that fares poorly compared with other European countries on measures of LGBTQ rights, according to data from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights — hosted a three-year program aimed at improving the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the workplace.

From February 2023 to October 2024, USAID committed to spending about $1.5 million — in three roughly $500,000 installments — to support the program.

At a program conference in September 2023, mission director for USAID in Serbia, Brooke Isham, said, “At USAID, we know that inclusive development is important for driving economic growth and also for creating a healthier democracy.”

A ‘DEI Musical’ in Ireland

The State Department committed to provide $70,844 in September 2022 to an Irish organization called Ceiliuradh, which is part of the Irish South Wind Blows production company. The money wasn’t for a “musical,” but rather a musical event.

That company’s musical component, called Other Voices, put together a program called “Other Voices: Dignity – Towards a More Equitable Future” for the U.S. Embassy in Dublin on Sept. 15, 2022.

The announcement for the event said it “will showcase the very best of American and Irish talent with a diverse programme which aims to fulfil the U.S. Embassy Dublin’s mission to promote diversity, inclusion, and equality.”

The event was streamed live on YouTube and featured several Irish and American artists.

USAID isn’t listed as providing any money for the event.

A ‘Transgender Opera’ in Colombia

On April 28, 2022, the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, put on a performance of the opera “As One.” The show, which was written in the U.S. and debuted in 2014, features a transgender protagonist.

A program for the university’s production of the opera said the show had the support of the university, the Bogotá Philharmonic Orchestra and the “Small Grants Program of the Embassy of the United States in Colombia.”

The Department of State committed $25,000 to fund the project, and the website USAspending.gov also noted that there was $22,020 of “non-federal funding” for the project, making a total of $47,020 listed on the site. The federal funding for this project also came from the State Department, not USAID.

A ‘Transgender Comic Book’ in Peru

In 2021, the U.S. Embassy in Peru introduced a comic book called “The Power of Education,” which it used to promote education and exchange programs in the U.S.

The following year, the embassy commissioned a second volume.

“The Embassy asked us to introduce a gay student in #2 to show his personal struggle coming out to his parents, but that has zero to do with being transgender,” David Campiti, who owns the company that produced the comic book, told us in an email. “The comics were about scholarships and furthering education.”

The series ended up including three comic books, each one showing an aspect of cultural exchange and education. View them here, here and here.

The second one is what was highlighted by the Trump administration as a “transgender comic book.” But volume 2 of “The Power of Education” does not include a transgender character. Rather, as Campiti said, it featured a hero who was gay.

The writer of the comic, David Lawrence, said the same thing in a post on his Facebook page on Feb. 4, explaining why the embassy had requested an LGBTQ character. “The US embassy in Peru requested that as a small response to anti gay prejudice in the country,” he wrote.

We reached out to the embassy for comment and were referred to the State Department, which did not respond to us.

Like the first volume, the second one was used to promote education and exchange programs. And, incidentally, it won two awards in 2023, including comic of the year, from a Peruvian organization called Chronicles of Diversity.

The funding for this project didn’t come from USAID, either, but, again, from the State Department.

So, funding for three of the four projects highlighted by the White House came from the State Department for funding cultural activities on behalf of various embassies.

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Donald Trump’s move to rapidly eradicate diversity efforts from the federal government marks the culmination of a widespread conservative backlash to the antiracism movement of 2020.

Five years ago, as “END RACISM” was emblazoned on professional football fields and Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima caricatures disappeared from grocery shelves, a growing number of voters bristled at what they saw as a performative attack that went far beyond that police brutality symbolized by the killing of George Floyd. As hiring managers across the country embraced diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Republicans waged a culture war over the “woke agenda” and rode it to victory, from local school board contests to sweeping Trump back into the White House.

The politics of race has changed in just a few years. And now Trump’s capitalizing on it.

"What a storytelling win for Trump," said DeRay McKesson, a progressive activist who rose to prominence during the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Missouri. "That is a failure of storytelling on the left and a huge win on the right."

On his first day in office as part of a conservative wishlist outlined in Project 2025to assert more control over the federal workforce, Trump declared DEI programs discriminatory and ordered them to be uprooted from government agencies and programs.

Five years ago, it was Democrats who were leading the pro-diversity push, even taking part in photo ops donning kente cloths and kneeling inside the U.S. Capitol to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests. Now it finds itself without a cogent plan on how to best stop the president’s DEI blowback at this moment — or how to win back those very voters they needed to stop him.

Trump campaigned on his first-term economy that had record low unemployment for Black and Latino Americans — drawing historically high levels of support among these voters last fall. Now, the first few months of his presidency could be marked by putting Black and brown federal employees out of work.

Hundreds of workers across federal agencies have already been placed on paid administrative leave following the order, including workers at the Department of Education who took part in a voluntary “Diversity Change Agent Program” that was established during Trump’s first term. The president fired high-ranking Democratsat bipartisan agencies responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws, raising questions about the policing of discrimination in the private sector.

This week a conservative nonprofit launched a website posting names and photos of employees on its "DEI watch list." The American Accountability Foundation said it started the website to highlight the prevalence of such roles in government jobs, but critics say it is a means of inviting online harassment to private citizens.

Both the White House and the Office of Management and Budget declined to disclose how many people will be affected by Trump's executive order to expel DEI from the federal government.

“President Trump campaigned on ending the scourge of DEI from our federal government and returning America to a merit-based society where people are hired based on their skills, not for the color of their skin," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. "This is another win for Americans of all races, religions, and creeds. Promises made, promises kept. It should come as no surprise.”

Diversity programs have been around for decades, but Trump has made them a frequent target of criticism. He blamed “woke generals” last year for the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, repeatedly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent and the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, as a “DEI-hire,” and even implied without evidence that diversity policies played a role in the worst airline crash in two decades and on air traffic controllers who didn't have the "highest level of intelligence."

“I just think there’s this sort of white male grievance they’re catering to,” said Debra D’Agostino, a Washington-based employment attorney who has been fielding calls from workers affected by the DEI-related purges from government posts.

The administration's order threatens to obliterate decades of efforts to reduce bias in hiring for federal government roles aimed at having a workforce that better represents the nation it serves.

These goals — once widely accepted without major controversy — weren't just about achieving a diverse workforce. Supporters of these types of initiatives say they were about tapping underrepresented talent pools for critical roles and to help administer programs, ranging from helping prospective minority homeowners secure government-backed loans to securing roles in cybersecurity to contributing to STEM fields at the National Academy of Sciences.

But as the post-2020 pendulum swung the other way, conservative activists won early electoral victories. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin credited his upset victory in blue-leaning Virginia to grievances over how elite high schools altered their admissions process in efforts to make it more equitable. Long before it was clear Trump would mount a political comeback, conservative Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned the teaching of diversity subjects in public schools. And grassroots groups like Moms For Liberty and Citizens Defending Freedom popped up across the country to win school board elections to alter curricula.

They also won key legal victories — in some cases aided by a Supreme Court that has a six-seat Republican majority, three appointed by Trump himself.

“I think with Trump, the Supreme Court striking down race-conscious admissions at Harvard and University of North Carolina is a huge part of this. It has been taken as license to kill DEI,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president and direct-counsel emeritus of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

And the court’s historic decision granting presidents immunity for “official acts” — potentially making impeachment the only real limit on presidential power — has further emboldened Trump, Ifill said: “Trump right now is not possible without those two decisions.”

Further dismantling of DEI initiatives are likely to come. Edward Blum, the conservative legal activist who successfully led the affirmative action case against Harvard, wrote in an email that diversity practices had long been “illegal, as well as polarizing,” and that his case has “energized many public interest legal organizations to challenge these practices.”

Democrats are trying to fight back, but the party is still reeling from stinging electoral losses last fall and finds itself locked out of power in Washington.

But critics say Democrats have been flat-footed and slow to respond to an assault on values of a party that has long viewed its multiracial coalition as a strength. This as the party is bleeding support from Black and Latino voters to Trump's version of the Republican party.

The ripple effects are almost certain to last long beyond the Trump presidency — undoing stability for hundreds of workers who worry about their livelihoods.

“The federal government used to be the safe place to get a job,” said a Black federal worker, granted anonymity to speak freely. "But not anymore."

And Happy Anniversary to Sanity Clause

President Trump says what he means and means what he says. Global business leaders would be well advised to believe him when he told those assembled at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 23: "Come make your product in America, and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on Earth" and added, "but if you don't make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then, very simply, you will have to pay a tariff."

The unitary executive theory underpins most of the Trump administration's most sweeping - and potentially illegal - actions to date.