I Came to Congress to Gut Foreign Aid. I Was Wrong – TIME

By Congressman Ted Yoho (R-FL-03), served in Congress from 2013-2021, including as Chairman of House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Asia Pacific

“I first came to Congress more than a decade ago to shock the system—a mandate to find and eliminate every possible cent of government excess that failed to deliver value to the economic and national security of the United States. At the very top of my list was foreign aid, which I considered a reckless extravagance that blew precious American tax dollars on vanity projects. I was wrong. It was only after my first foreign congressional delegation trips to Africa and Latin America that I understood that foreign assistance, when structured and deployed correctly, is a uniquely powerful soft diplomacy tool to strengthen the nation’s economy and national security… by projecting American leadership in a sometimes fractured world, broadening and deepening political alliances and bilateral trade, and countering the influence of our adversaries and other malign actors who mean to do us harm.”