Foreign aid programs historically operated largely out of the public eye.
Now, according to State Department spokesperson Thomas Pigott, that era is over — and for good reason.
In an interview with Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, Pigott explained that USAID previously “had a fundamental complete lack of accountability.”
“That’s why we wanted to bring USAID under the State Department, identify those programs,” he says.
“We would have circumstances where USAID was doing a program in a certain country that ran counter to the policy of the duly elected president of the United States, ran counter to the foreign policy in that country. You had a tremendous amount of USAID programs that were simply fueling an NGO industrial complex,” he explains.
“And this NGO industrial complex wasn’t actually addressing many of the problems we want to address, but instead was funding things that were counter to the United States,” he adds.
According to Pigott, they would fund organizations that wanted open borders and were trying to pressure the U.S. against adopting policies that would secure the border.
“So we’re addressing this and making sure that when we have programs, we’re actually having programs that further our foreign policy. It’s common sense. It’s how our system should work,” he says.
Fundamental to ensuring our foreign policy is prioritized, Pigott says, is “accountability.”
“We know where the money is going. And also, we’re able to spend it faster. If you look at our disaster response in Venezuela, for example, we are seeing a massive response to Venezuela, showing the effectiveness of a program when you have it aligned with your foreign policy and in the State Department,” he explains.
The State Department is also tackling censorship, as Pigott tells Glenn that going after the censorship industrial complex is another one of the State Department’s priorities.
“We have actually eliminated certain organizations from the beginning within the State Department that were actively censoring the American people. We’ve also taken action at the State Department for when other countries pass laws that do what’s called extra-territorial censorship,” he explains.
“So they pass a law, but their laws end up censoring American speech. That is unacceptable,” he says, adding, “So we’re going to protect freedom of speech.”
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Censorship industrial complex, Foreign aid programs, Freedom of speech, Glenn beck, Ngo industrial complex, State department spokesperson, Thomas pigott, The glenn beck program
