President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said during an interview that some of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts could hurt “long-term American interests,” particularly on the foreign policy front.
“A well-run foreign aid program, and I’m not saying that’s what exists now, but a well-run foreign aid program is trying to help our friends, persuade others to become friends. How you spend it in the country is open to debate. But nobody talks about, are we spending enough in the right countries to advance American interests? That’s what you need,” Bolton said during a Friday appearance on NewsNation’s show “On Balance with Leland Vittert.”
Bolton said the “culture of bureaucracy” will resist and that is why, in his view, it is paramount to have enforcers capable of properly responding.
“The question is, do you have people capable of leading the bureaucracy, of kicking the bureaucracy in the butt when it needs to happen, or you just have a bunch of guys taking names off buildings and putting people on administrative leave,” Bolton said on Friday, referencing DOGE’s focus on U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“You can do it that way, but you’re you’re harming long term American interests properly understood,” he added.
The Trump administration has criticized some of the programs run by USAID, arguing the agency is supporting liberal causes around the world and has looked to fold it into the State Department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was made the acting director of the agency that gives countries development and humanitarian assistance. Tech mogul Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, has accused USAID of being a criminal organization.
Bolton, whose security detail Trump revoked last month, said “there are a large number” of things that need to be reformed within USAID without eviscerating the organization.
He advised going after the U.S. contributions to the United Nations (UN), the World Bank and “multilateral development banks, the regional banks, where America gets no credit for the money it puts in there.”
“A carefully directed Foreign Assistance Program is an aid to national security. That’s not what we have now, but destroying it entirely is removing a weapon in the international arena that we need,” he said on Friday.
Bolton suggested that Trump’s UN Ambassador nominee Elise Stefani consider scaling back some U.S. donations to the UN while contributions to other programs within the body should be reevaluated.
“Our permanent seat in the council and its vote are written into the U.N. Charter, and we can veto changes to the charter,” Bolton wrote in a late December op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “The potential negative consequences of ending assessed contributions, then, are essentially nil.”
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