EXCLUSIVE: U.S. and Latin American officials are accusing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) of using American taxpayer dollars for causes championed by left-wing candidates across Latin America.
The allegations come after several countries in the region elected conservative leaders following the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle USAID and shift remaining foreign assistance functions to the State Department.
“You have plenty of examples out there of how USAID was attempting to run its own foreign policy,” U.S. Ambassador to Panama Kevin Marino Cabrera told Fox News Digital.
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Cabrera said USAID’s dismantling has allowed the State Department and U.S. Southern Command to work more closely with partner countries on disaster relief and recovery efforts.
“When you look at a post-USAID world where we have forces from the State Department and U.S. Southern Command working together in Jamaica, Venezuela, Colombia and now Panama, they’ve had great success in responding to natural disasters,” Cabrera said.
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“We’re focused on actual disaster relief and recovery. We’re not focused on these crazy agendas, like failed DEI policies that have nothing to do with foreign policy or disaster relief and recovery,” he added.
Cabrera also criticized what he described as a lack of leadership during the Biden administration, saying it allowed USAID to pursue programs that promoted left-wing causes in the region.
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Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian politician and the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, made similar allegations in an interview with The Daily Signal earlier this month.
Bolsonaro claimed that more than $60 million in U.S. taxpayer funds was sent to Brazil through USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Atlantic Council to support organizations that combat what those groups describe as “right-wing misinformation.”
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Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has recently positioned his administration as a global champion of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and has used high-profile international forums to criticize what he describes as a coordinated wave of right-wing disinformation.
“This is foreign election interference,” Bolsonaro told the outlet. “American taxpayer dollars were financing foreign censorship in the name of the left, which is completely contrary to why USAID was even created in the first place.”
Bolsonaro said President John F. Kennedy created USAID with good intentions but argued that the agency had since strayed from its original mission.
“Unfortunately, under the Biden administration, ideological division and polarization diverted that initiative,” he added.
The Atlantic Council and the National Endowment for Democracy did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
