Honestly when people insist that the end of USAID marks a “return” to some kind of hard-fisted age of imperialism, above all it shows that they somehow thought that US aid around the world was some actual act of generosity or Mere publicity for US empire, when the reality is that especially in Africa the aid Itself WAS the imperialism. The aid itself was specifically designed to undermine the development of local industries and foster dependence on the US on every economic level to undermine national sovereignty. Without the aid there’s suffering in the short term, but also a complete retraction of leverage in the long term and again, let’s be realistic: the US is not going to bring in boats and planes and conquer states on the African mainland that refuse to submit to its dictates. It can’t afford to and even if it could it can’t win.
Those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk, they are not helping us. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors, fertilizers, insecticides, watering cans, drills and dams. That is how we would define food aid.
– Comrade Thomas Sankara