Maine nonprofit's humanitarian work in Africa jeopardized by Trump's dismantling of USAID
The Trump administration is attempting to dismantle USAID, which provides humanitarian relief in many countries around the world.
Chris Schwabe, president and CEO of Hallowell-based MCD Global Health, said the nonprofit's work in Mozambique, Uganda and Niger is in a state of flux. MCD has a five-year, $27 million USAID federal grant for its humanitarian work in Africa.
"We have not been told to terminate the project," Schwabe said. "We've been told to stop work."
Though the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle USAID have caused MCD's work to fight malaria in Africa to come to a halt, Schwabe hopes the move will be temporary.
MCD is the primary nonprofit for malaria relief in Mozambique and assists other agencies in Uganda and Niger with the prevention, treatment and diagnosis of malaria.
"If we are not able to timely diagnose children and pregnant women and treat them with low-cost and effective drugs, the illness and death toll is going to be staggering," Schwabe said. "It's a virulent infection that, if you take your foot off the pedal of trying to control it, it will rebound."
If access to the funding is not restored, MCD would lose its 34 staff members in Mozambique and its 20 staffers split between Uganda and Niger. MCD itself would not shutter, as about 80% of its efforts to promote public health are based in Maine.
Meanwhile, thousands of USAID employees have been put on leave and locked out of their offices, and the agency may be folded into the State Department.
Trump, without evidence, told national reporters Sunday that USAID is "being run by a bunch of radical lunatics" and praised billionaire Elon Musk's efforts to hobble the $40 billion agency. Musk is heading up the new Department of Government Efficiency, which operates out of a White House office and is attempting to cut services across the federal bureaucracy.
However, many legal scholars and Democratic politicians are calling the move illegal, as USAID was created during the Kennedy administration in the 1960s by a law, so they contend Congress would have to pass another law to dismantle the agency. If the Trump administration attempts to permanently end USAID without going through Congress, lawsuits are likely.
Schwabe said that in addition to humanitarian relief, the work done by USAID spreads goodwill in these countries and helps retain the United States' international position of global influence. Retreating from humanitarian aid could allow other countries, like China and Russia, to gain more influence in these countries, many of which contain essential natural resources, he said.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, in a news conference Tuesday in Maine, called the moves by Trump and Musk — including the USAID hobbling — "blatantly unconstitutional" and "illegal."
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, signed on to a letter by 36 other Democratic senators to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to lambaste the takeover of USAID as "brazen and illegal."
Schwabe said he is "mystified" by the sudden attack on what had long been noncontroversial efforts to provide humanitarian relief.
"Since the Kennedy administration, there has been bipartisan support, year in and year out, for USAID," he said.
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