Philippines: Expose programs for perpetuating U.S. domination in the face of Trump's 90-day suspension of USAID programs

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) views the recent 90-day suspension of funding for programs of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) by the Trump government as a manifestation of the deepening political crisis in the United States, in which the new regime aims to take control of the entire bureaucracy and realign the budget to service its own oligarchic interests and ultra-conservative agenda.

The USAID programs around the world have long been used as a tool for soft power projection, aimed at maintaining US global hegemony. Behind the veil of humanitarian or economic assistance, USAID has been instrumental in promoting neoliberal economic policies, strengthening US cultural influence, exploiting natural resources of its semi-colonies, pushing infrastructure projects that benefit US corporations and advance US security and military interests.

The US government spent around $30 billion for USAID in 2024, a puny amount (around 3%) compared to $886 billion in overall defense spending. The USAID programs in the Philippines amount to around $300 million annually since 2001. These are, as US officials declare, “strategic investments” to maintain US dominance and control of the Philippines. The economic, political and military returns are much greater than the investment, from access to the country’s natural resources as well as being granted extra-territorial rights to maintain US military forces and weapons stockpile in the country.

The US government uses these programs to portray it as a “friend, partner and ally” of the Filipino people and cover up the truth that US imperialism is the enemy of Philippine freedom and democracy. Funding for USAID has gone to programs that promote US investments in the country, covering-up the role of US imperialism in perpetuating poverty and underdevelopment. The USAID portrays the US as a benevolent donor of aid and assistance. In reality, the US has long perpetuated economic backwardness in the Philippines, through unequal trade and economic agreements and neoliberal economic policies that hinder the country’s industrial development, prevent it from achieving self-reliance, and keep it dependent on foreign debt and capital.

The programs of the USAID hypocritically claims to promote “freedom,” “democracy”, “human rights,” “gender rights” and other “causes” in the Philippines. In reality, the US has been instrumental in promoting state terrorism through military aid, training, and indoctrination of the armed forces along its counterinsurgency ideology. The US has provided the Philippine military with funding and equipment used to suppress people’s resistance, targeting progressive and patriotic groups and individuals critical of US imperialist domination and its local stooges.

It buttresses the US imperialist objective of reinforcing its military domination of the country, especially in the face of its efforts to strengthen its military bases and facilities in the country. The suspension of the USAID program will merely serve the broader effort to reconfigure US foreign policy in line with the Trump regime’s aggressive push to seize control of sources of raw materials, wider markets and spheres of investments.

With the 90-day suspension of the USAID, the Party calls on all patriotic forces to expose the machinations of US imperialism and to strengthen the people’s resistance against US economic and military domination and against the Marcos reactionary puppet regime.

The Party calls on the Filipino people to be critical and expose US imperialism’s tactics, whether through USAID or other means. We urge the people to intensify their struggle against US economic, political, cultural and military domination, and to struggle for genuine independence and self-determination.

#International #Philippines #USAID #Trump #CPP