The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has spent tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars on some shocking expenditures.
USAID was established in 1961 to provide money made by Americans to help countries develop abroad.
However, the agency has been shuttered because Donald Trump and Elon Musk have found that the aid being doled out overseas often does not accomplish core U.S. missions, like expanding education and improving infrastructure.
‘You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair,’ Musk said of USAID on Monday. ‘We’re shutting it down.’
Now Musk and officials at his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are readying to dissolve the agency and roll it into the State Department, an idea the Tesla CEO says Trump is on board with.
Just after taking office, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio implemented a 90-day freeze on most foreign aid expenditures to give the new administration time to review what USAID’s $30 billion budget for 2025 is being used on.
Rubio announced Monday he is now the acting director of USAID.
But some Republicans have been sounding the alarm on USAID for weeks, saying the agency is more focused on advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) than diplomacy.
And some USAID receipts show it. DailyMail.com breaks down some of the most shocking ways the agency has spent U.S. taxpayer money.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast says he supports potential plan moving USAID into the State Department
One of the big ticket items that no longer will receive U.S. funding is a pro LGBTQ group in Serbia through a group called ‘Grupa Izadji,’ which in English translates to ‘Group Come Out’
This Serbian pro-LGBTQ group was receiving millions of dollars a year from USAID to expand employment opportunities in Serbia for the gay community. The money flowing to this group has been frozen by Trump
HIV research about transgenders
The Wits Health Consortium, a South African research facility that studies the transmission of HIV among sex workers and transgenders, has received $30 million from USAID since 2018, federal data shows.
The South African research firm was awarded $38 million dollars in total, but the final $8 million which has yet to be allocated may be slashed after to Trump’s foreign aid review.
‘HIV epidemic control in South Africa pivots on the success of providing appropriate services for key populations, including sex workers (SWS), their clients, and transgender (TG) people,’ the award states.
According to the federal receipts, the award was made to develop ‘a model of provision of accessible clinical interventions for [sex workers].’
Millions to COVID lab in China
The White Coat Waste Project, an anti-animal experimentation group, also uncovered that USAID funded $38 million worth of grants that ended up going to the same lab where COVID-19 is believed to have originated from, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Serbian LGBTQ group
Another big ticket item that no longer will receive U.S. funding is a pro-LGBTQ group in Serbia through a group called ‘Grupa Izadji,’ which in English translates to ‘Group Come Out.’
This NGO received $1.5 million from Biden’s administration to ‘advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities, by promoting economic empowerment of and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia.’
According to the grant, the Serbian group ‘will foster an environment that increases employment potential for LGBTQI+ persons, expands opportunities for LGBTQI+ entrepreneurs, and reduces workplace discrimination.’
Drag Queens attend the RuPaul’s DragCon UK 2025 at the Excel Centre in London, Britain, 10 January 2025. The U.S. State Department will no longer fund DEI projects like Colombian transgender operas or Peruvian trans comic books, Mast told DailyMail.com
Taliban fighters walk as they fire into the air to disperse Afghan women protesters. This week a bombshell report highlighted how Biden’s State Department gave $15 million to the Taliban for contraceptives after the group banned the products
However, Trump’s foreign aid freeze has cut off money from flowing to ‘Grupa Izadji,’ which was expected to be funded through the end of FY 2025.
Electric vehicles in Vietnam
Another one of these costly foreign aid funds approved under Biden’s administration awarded $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam.
Since the huge investment of U.S. taxpayer dollars there has been at least one battery station built, avoiding a total of 260 gallons of gas, according to the USAID website.
An average semi-truck holds roughly, by comparison, holds about 130 gallons of gas.
Other eye-popping USAID initiatives include a documentary highlighting the agency’s efforts propping up the first transgender health care clinic in India.
Trans care clinics
The agency also helped open TransCare Clinic, an operation established to ‘address ongoing gaps in transgender health care across Vietnam,’ according to a September 2024 USAID press release.
LGBTQ initiatives globally
USAID established in 2023 a LGBTQI+ policy to help advance non-heterosexual objectives around the globe.
The policy ‘advances USAID’s commitment to supporting protection, inclusion, and human rights for all so that LGBTQI+ individuals are able to live with dignity and free from all forms of violence, discrimination, stigma, and criminalization,’ a memo announcing the program declared.
Beyond USAID, other taxpayer-funded initiatives have also caught the eyes of GOP lawmakers eager to cut necessary programs or undeserving recipients from federal aid programs.
Operas in Colombia
For example, the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs approved $25,000 for a opera in Columbia in order to increase ‘transgender representation’ in the arts. In addition to the government funding the group received $22,000 in private funding as well.
‘So, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia. That was a real one,’ House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast revealed to DailyMail.com last week.
‘Let’s see, there was a transgender comic book, we’re trying to get our hands on the actual comic book, in Peru,’ he continued. ‘And I heard it’s reasonably risqué.’
Peruvian trans comic books
The Peruvian trans comic book program received $32,000 under former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to federal documents.
Efforts to ‘expand atheism’ abroad
Mast has also decried how the U.S. has sent $500,000 to expand atheism in Nepal.
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