'Sickening': Scathing column slams Trump's 'callous' war on world's poorest children

President Donald Trump's effort to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development is not just illegal and counterproductive, but deeply cruel, wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in a scathing analysis published on Wednesday.

In essence, he wrote, the scheme — which appears to be proceeding with the blessing of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the enthusiastic encouragement of tech billionaire Elon Musk — amounts to "the world's richest men" taking on "the world's poorest children."

"By my calculations, Elon Musk probably has a net worth greater than that of the poorest billion people on Earth," wrote Kristof. "Just since Donald Trump’s election, Musk’s personal net worth has grown by far more than the entire annual budget of U.S.A.I.D., which in any case accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. It’s callous for gleeful billionaires like Musk and President Trump to cut children off from medicine, but, as President John F. Kennedy pointed out when he proposed the creation of the agency in 1961, it’s also myopic."

Ultimately, Kristof said, Kennedy understood failure to dispense foreign aid would cost the United States more in the long run, by ensuring world stability and by extension, America's own national security.

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"Perhaps that’s why Russia has praised Trump’s move," wrote Kristof. "In contrast with Kennedy, the Trump administration braids together cruelty, ignorance and shortsightedness, and that combination seems particularly evident in its assault on American humanitarian assistance."

Beyond that, Kristof wrote, USAID plays a critical role in global health.

"One person has already died of bird flu in the United States, and there is growing concern of a pandemic — yet Trump’s suspension of foreign aid has interrupted bird flu surveillance in 49 countries, according to the Global Health Council, a U.S.-based nonprofit," he wrote. "Remember the American panic over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014? (Trump was particularly hysterical back then.) In the end, an Ebola pandemic was averted — in part because of U.S.A.I.D.’s work in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone."

Similarly, George W. Bush's AIDS relief program, credited with saving 26 million lives since its inception, relied on USAID to get off the ground — and as it did, "I saw coffin makers in Lesotho and Malawi grumble that their business was collapsing because far fewer people were dying."

"Around the world, children are already missing health care and food because of the assault on the agency that Kennedy founded to uphold our values and protect our interests," Kristof concluded. "To billionaires in the White House, it may seem like a game. But to anyone with a heart, it’s about children’s lives and our own security, and what’s unfolding is sickening."