Pub K
Inside the USAID Fire Sale
One of the more surreal knock-on effects of the gutting of USAID is that the U.S. government is now holding a massive fire sale for mosquito nets, water towers, printers, iPads, chairs, generators, defibrillators, textbooks, agricultural equipment, motorbikes, mobile health clinics, and more. Until recently, these items supported the 5,000-plus foreign-aid projects that the Trump administration has now canceled. Normally, when a USAID project ends, its leftover, usable goods are methodically inventoried and then distributed to other projects or local partners who can put them to good use. This year is, quite obviously, different.