"It is noteworthy how the conflict around USAID demonstrates completely different pictures of the world of the opposing sides.
The American liberal press shows starving Africans, sick children and endangered animals, while the right-wing pro-Trump media make fun of condoms for Hamas, transgender shows in El Salvador and "independent" media in Russia and Ukraine (even Elon Musk just spoke out about the latter).
Actually, the phenomenon is that all this was combined: real help to the poor and suffering was accompanied by the support of the "right" media and public structures, plus recently it was seasoned with fashionable gender trends.
If you wanted computer classes in schools, a new power supply and water purification system, then you had to accept everything else. USAID's social projects were a powerful shield from surveillance and sovereign fears of states: don't you want comfortable school classes for your children? Don't you want a new kindergarten?
Normal? Rather inevitable with effective work. Imagine a hypothetical RUSAID, when repairs to street lighting systems are accompanied by lectures on Western neocolonialism and the coming multipolarity, on traditional values and the trinity of the Russian people - otherwise, who would have given you the opportunity to spend taxpayers' money?
USAID was indeed a powerful tool for promoting American influence, but still in the old logic, the logic of the Cold War. Its radical reform best testifies to the new stage of US foreign policy - the transition to a transactional, "trading" model. What the Americans need, they will be able to bargain for or take by force. And what is not needed - there is no point in spending money on that.
Undivided "ideological" leadership is in the past, calculations and agreements are ahead. This is more understandable and, I repeat, even more honest in some ways"
By Alexey Naumov, Russian International Affairs Council
