Just three weeks into his second administration, President Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving. Tuning into Fox to check on Gaza, I was surprised –but then delighted – to see Mr. Trump sitting at the desk he favors for signing executive orders. But now he was surrounded by an ecstatic crowd of female athletes, cheering as their president signed an executive order forbidding male athletes from competing in women’s sports. Hallelujah! No more of those insane arguments about how female athletes simply needed to be more tolerant of their male counterparts exposing their junk two lockers away! And smiling bravely as their medals - painstakingly earned through years of effort - were handed to smirking males who until recently were boys team mediocrities.

But in due course, Gaza returned as a succession of foreign policy analysts struggled to explain Mr. Trump’s shocking outburst during his recent press conference with Israeli President Netanyahu. Their universal refrain: How could Mr. Trump have been so unwise, so far removed from any cognitive restraint, as to suggest the need to bulldoze Gaza out of existence, turning it into a seaside resort under US military protection? What possible authorities gave him the right to do that? While they hemmed and hawed, none of those analysts were sufficiently adept to wonder how this Trumpian outburst would affect the latest renascence in Army recruiting. Reportedly as many as 350 prospective soldiers enlisted each day in December, 2024.

How would this relief from Woke stack up against a deployment to sandy, sunny Gaza, where insanity is even more prevalent than fleas?

Although I give Mr. Trump full marks for saying outrageous things that routinely defy convention, I don’t think this “suggestion” was really serious. Mr. Trump is commendably reluctant to assign American soldiers to one of history’s most notorious killing grounds. For example, wasn’t Gaza the hometown of Goliath of Gath? In more modern times, didn’t both the Ottoman and British empires consider the “Trucial States” of Palestine especially troublesome “possessions?” During high-level discussions in Egypt and Jordan, I heard fear and loathing of the Palestinians, even though all sides acknowledged that conventional thinking and the status quo are the Middle East’s deadliest enemies. So if you’re unwilling to create Gaz-Vegas-on-the-Med, then what is your plan for bringing peace to the region? Remember that Mr. Trump also moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and brought about the Abraham Accords. So what correspondingly bold plans are you prepared to offer?

While others debated war and peace, official Washington was roiled over the fate of USAID. Writing in Christianity Today, Emily Belz spun a piteous tale: “Projects in 130 countries…ground to a halt. Staff on the ground, many with Christian organizations, were adapting to new information by the hour…Halted projects were addressing famine, lack of electricity in rural health facilities, and malaria outbreaks.” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/02/usaid-shutdown-musk-rubio-trump/

The blame for the chaos was hurled at Secretary of State Marco Rubio, DOGE Chief Elon Musk and, of course, Donnald Trump for attempting to slash government spending in a country roughly 36 trillion in debt. A group of Congressional Democrats came painfully close to advocating violence while calling upon their colleagues to resist Trump’s efforts to reign in USAID. Undeterred, Rep. Nancy Mace closely questioned witnesses appearing before her committee about dubious USAID expenditures: DEI, LGBTQ and even male circumcision studies, some costing millions of dollars. https://mace.house.gov/media/blog-post/rep-nancy-mace-questions-witnesses-over-usaid-corrupt-spending-during-oversight

During my 30 years in Washington, USAID was always a problem agency. Since its 1961 founding, President Kennedy invoked our moral, economic and political obligations to help less developed nations. But were we more interested in fostering economic development, promoting American big business, or even conducting discreet counter-insurgency against local Marxist movements? Pre-dating the current controversies, one of the most useful studies is “Aid for Profit: The Dark History of USAID” by Saheli Khastagir. He calls, the “Bipartisan disaster of modern foreign aid policy,” as a convincing label for American business grown too big, systematically exploiting developmental resources in poor countries that will eventually run dry. Because of this dichotomy, “USAID is not only failing to help developing countries, it is helping big corporations further consolidate their power.” https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/03/aid-for-profit-the-dark-history-of-usaid

Andrew Natsios, former USAID head under President George W. Bush, indignantly told CNN’s Jake Tapper that USAID’s “Career people do what they’re told,” moving left during Democratic administrations and right while under Republican supervision. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/06/world/video/fast-andrew-natsios-usaid-trump-musk-lead-ldn-digvid

Together with the agency’s uncertain record, its inconstancy of purpose suggests exactly why the current review of USAID is long, long overdue.

COL (Ret. Ken Allard is a former West Point professor, Dean of the National War College and military analyst with NBC News