Samantha Power: We Can’t Quantify What it Does to American Foreign Policy, to Take Away the ‘Soft Power Bonanza’ USAID Has Brought over the Years

EXCERPT:

POWER: “The programming that the secretary of state says is continuing at scale is not, it has been slashed and it is now unrecognizable in the communities where it was saving all those lives. If it can be resurrected at the State Department, again, every USAID — fan of USAID or worker at USAID would celebrate the relaunch of this programming that has been so valuable, not only for those lives saved and all the work and good that those individuals go on to do in their communities and their countries, but also for America‘s reputation. I think this is the part of this discussion that has not gotten enough attention. It‘s the extent to which the State Department, the Defense Department, the intelligence community, the people going out in pursuit of America‘s national interest every day, those people are able to leverage the work that USAID has done to win hearts and minds, to change lives. And we can‘t quantify what it does to American foreign policy to take away that soft power bonanza that USAID brought over those years.”