By now there are few that hold out any hope of US President Donald Trump ever making any sensible or humane decisions.
There seems no logic to anything he does. Long-time allies such as Canada are out in the cold, while the US now partners with the likes of Russia, China and North Korea on world-altering matters before the UN.
His decision to immediately cancel about 5,800 USAID-funded projects worldwide will have a devastating impact. And it simply makes no sense.
Long-term, it will affect world health in ways we cannot yet imagine.
With the press of the same button, his equally unstable adviser Elon Musk gleefully cancelled the USAID-funded programme intended for Ebola virus prevention efforts.
Persuaded by the possibility of apocalyptic visuals of US citizens bleeding to death through every orifice from the horror haemorrhagic virus, Musk grudgingly restored at least that funding.
But, while the deadly impact of slashing all funding to thousands of other health programmes may be slower than that of a possible Ebola outbreak, it will be just as deadly for millions of vulnerable people.
It will also have a devastating impact on the world’s ability to respond to health crises.
Musk doesn’t care. He has delegated funding world health to the category of government “waste, fraud, and abuse” which he has promised to eliminate.
While saving that government little in real terms, it will serve to effectively “eliminate” people in developing countries such as SA.
The letter to beneficiary organisations formally cancelling that aid said it was no longer considered to “be in the US’s national interest”.
The same letters reportedly concluded: “Thank you for partnering with USAID. God Bless America.”
The decision is not just devastating for aid organisations and the communities they assist, but it is damaging the US’s international relations.
It is a national crisis which cries out for leadership from our national government, which has been markedly absent.
Like apartheid SA, the new US is becoming the world’s polecat and its foul Trumpian smell will have most democracies reeling away from it in disgust.
In SA, the decision to slash USAID will be a terrible setback to HIV prevention and treatment programmes and those reliant on them.
And with the breakdown of HIV programmes, there is likely to be a resurgence of other preventable diseases.
It is a national crisis which cries out for leadership from our national government, which has been markedly absent.
The Treatment Action Campaign, which famously forced the hand of our former Aids denialist president Thabo Mbeki to provide people with antiretroviral medication, has warned that it is prepared to once again “hold government’s feet to the fire”.
It shouldn’t have to. This is a constitutional democracy, which unlike the new US, is committed to creating a better life for all.
President Cyril Ramaphosa needs to step up and ensure we live up to that constitutional promise.
Daily Dispatch
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