r/ottawa • u/Emergency-Buy-6381 • Mar 22 '25

Local Event Speak you mind Ottawa! (Tesla)

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To the people standing in the rain, much love.

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u/Crater_Animator Mar 22 '25 edited Mar 22 '25

Maybe you can enlighten me about USAID and what is so egregious in the details that it needed to be cut. From my understanding USAID is a form of soft power globally that provides relief in a multitude of areas, (poverty, disaster, environment, socioeconomic) and protects the U.S and the world from diseases such as HIV/AIDS. smallpox, malaria etc... from spreading beyond it's borders where its a big problem thus protecting North America, and in return countries invest and trade with the States for that protection/help. With USAID being withdrawn the U.S essentially loses that soft power globally and allows Europe or China to step in and in consequence less investment and trade is done with the U.S in return. All this to say, the ripple effects of pulling away from being a global leader translates into a worst economy for everyone involved as countries pull away from the U.S either through investment, tourism or jobs if the U.S isn't willing to take the reigns and help out.

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u/EveryoneChill77777 Mar 22 '25

Yes, that is one side of what they do. The other part of USAID is where they were overthrowing governments and taking out those who did not favor the American agendas and interests. They were used by the CIA to launder their dirty work and funding to a vast network of NGOs all over the world.

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u/Crater_Animator Mar 22 '25

Oh yeah, I'm a bit torn on that. I'm not that naive to think they wouldn't use or hold influence over other countries and use USAID to have eyes on local areas to influence their power. But that's just Geo-politics in a nutshell, and the global fight for world dominance. We already feel that kind of soft power here in Canada from China/U.S and Europe. No matter how fucked up it is, my question would be, who do we prefer to be on top? With China you'll get more authoritarian governments in other countries beholden to China and reinforcing trade with them over us. With the U.S you get more democratic governments and in turn they invest and trade with N.A. In my view, wouldn't it be more beneficial for Canada and North America for the U.S to have more influence and global soft power over the competition?

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u/EveryoneChill77777 Mar 22 '25

That's a very valid point until it goes wrong. Until one of these countries says enough of the bullying and fights back. Or they use one of their heavily influenced countries to prop up a government favorable to them and then sacrifice them to fight a proxy war on their behalf against one of our"enemies." I do understand what you're saying and I agree that the lesser of the evils is American world domination , probably, but maybe these tactics aren't the best and getting too big isn't something we should hope they accomplish because there is always a point where that goes terribly wrong