When Trump paused USAID operations and effectively folded the agency under the U.S. Department of State in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained the move was to root out wasteful or fraudulent global aid programs – of which there were many, he assured.

After mass staff layoffs, a purging of more than 90% of USAID global aid contracts, and a rescinding of roughly 15,000 aid grants costing $60 billion during the past week alone, Democrats are accusing Trump of jeopardizing and politicizing the agency’s vital humanitarian work.

In an exclusive interview with The Center Square, global conflict expert from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Dr. Rebecca Wolfe warned against assimilating USAID into the State department, arguing its status as a largely independent government organization allows it to carry out complex aid operations.

“They [other departments] don’t have the experience to run these very complicated programs,” said Wolfe, who has developed programs with humanitarian aid organization Mercy Corps. “How do you actually run a huge operation of delivering food, or cash, or medicine to places in insecure areas?…There’s all this operational experience that will get lost.”

She referenced attempts made by previous administrations to merge USAID’s work with State or Defense operations, which resulted in aid distribution in Afghanistan and Iraq getting “very muddy” because “people didn’t know who was responsible for what.”

But impracticality is not the only issue, she added. When humanitarian aid becomes politicized or associated too closely with the American government, humanitarian aid workers become a bigger target on the ground.

“Humanitarian workers get protection because they aren’t political actors,” Wolfe said. “As aid has become more embedded into the military and into national security policies at work, aid workers have become more of a target … We’ve seen aid worker deaths go up over the last 25 years. It’s not completely linear, but last year, particularly because of Gaza, it went up quite a bit again.”

Republicans argue that politicization is already endemic within USAID, necessitating drastic reform or even abolishing the agency entirely and validating Trump’s decision to place it under the State department.

USAID has come under fire for its funding of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, electric vehicles, contraception, LGBTQ+ activism, and armed terrorist groups around the world.

Some of the USAID contracts and awards recently terminated by the State Department include a $252 million contract to implement “green platform scaling climate adaptation” in developing countries, an $83 million contract to expand renewable energy projects in Nigeria, and a $57 million award to promote “community resilience” and violence prevention in Tunisia.

Yet dozens of life-saving programs have reportedly been shut down as well, including a $131 million UNICEF grant for polio immunization, a $34 million project distributing medical supplies in Kenya, and a $90 million Chemonics contract for malaria prevention, according to the New York Times. Critics of such spending of U.S. tax dollars say Americans can’t take care of the world when the nation has so many homegrown issues to deal with, such as poverty and homelessness, the border and fentanyl crisis, violent crime and more.

Wolfe pushed back on the accusations of widespread waste and corruption at USAID, saying the agency has been “a leader in cost effectiveness” even if it’s made some mistakes.

“I’m not saying there weren’t programs that weren’t effective – we make mistakes, everyone does – but I’ve been with programs that have failed, and I’ve been with some really good programs,” Wolfe said. “Things are caught as well. And so the amount of fraud that these people are talking about is significantly less than what is being portrayed.”

But Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, testified the opposite in a recent hearing before lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee. He said most of USAID’s programs lack real time oversight, creating “a gap in vetting and enforcement,” which allows grant recipients to abuse funds.

This lack of transparency is what led to 90% of all U.S. aid to Gaza ending up in Hamas-controlled areas, Roman argued. In fact, he added, USAID actively lobbies against policies that would enhance transparency, such as the 118th Congress’ H.R. 160, which would have increased vetting requirements to ensure overseas funding does not go to terrorist groups.

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Roman acknowledged, however, that many of the U.S.’s foreign aid programs are important to maintaining world stability, addressing humanitarian crises, and ensuring America’s global leadership.

“Let’s fix foreign aid once and for all,” he told lawmakers. “Because when it comes to national security and the trust of the American taxpayer, we can’t afford to miss the mark.”