WASHINGTON – Signing a dramatic new direction for US foreign assistance, President-elect Joe Biden is due to announce on Wednesday that he will appoint former UN ambassador Samantha Power to head the United States Agency for International Development, according to transition authorities.
Biden is also expected to enhance the role of Power by raising his position to a member of the National Security Council.
In a prepared statement obtained by NBC News, Biden called Power “a world-renowned voice of conscience and moral clarity”.
“As a USAID administrator,” said Biden, “she will work with our partners to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, raise vulnerable communities, fight for the value of every human being and promote American ideals and interests around the world.”
If it is confirmed by the Senate, Power will have a lot to rebuild. Under President Donald Trump, the agency’s budget has been cut and career development experts have been replaced by political appointees with little experience in the field.
In the budget proposed by the government last year, foreign aid and USAID funds were cut by 22%. Trump officials defended the cuts, saying they expected other countries to meet global needs.
Trump’s budget also cut other State Department accounts for refugees, global health in the midst of a pandemic and other humanitarian programs, although foreign aid totals less than 1% of the federal budget. Republicans and Democrats in Congress ended up rejecting the proposal, but development experts said the signal sent to the poorest countries had already left its mark.
The government was also widely criticized for filling key USAID positions with political appointees. On Friday after the 2020 election, the White House abruptly fired deputy administrator Bonnie Glick, who had been confirmed by the Senate, saying she had until the end of the day to leave her office.
The authorities offered no explanation of the dismissal to reporters, but if she had not left, she would have automatically taken over as the agency’s interim administrator by the Trump administration, John Barsa, a political appointee, whose term as interim administrator would expire at the same day, according to the Federal Vacancy Reform Law.
Most recently, The Washington Post reported that USAID employees were left out when the federal government distributed the first round of coronavirus vaccines to the State Department last month. Although doses of the vaccine reached 1,100 State Department employees, none went to USAID until last week.
Morale plunged further after the attack on the Capitol, when the agency’s contact with the White House, former Trump campaign official Catharine O’Neill, tweeted criticizing any Trump employee who was considering resigning.
Axios also obtained audio from her stating the week after the election: “The election is still going on. The Electoral College has not yet voted.”
