The Danube Institute hosted an event titled Politicization of Aid at its headquarters at the Lónyay–Hatvany Villa in the historic Castle District of Budapest, Hungary on Tuesday, 24 February. The occasion: it is the one-year anniversary of the suspension of the operation of the USAID agency within the US government in February 2025, which has since been completely dismantled.
President of the Danube Institute John O’Sullivan greeted the attendees with some brief welcome remarks. In it, he cited famous Hungarian British economist Peter Bauer, who described foreign aid in Western countries as a scheme which ‘takes money away from poor people in rich countries and gives it to rich people in poor countries.’ He also claimed that foreign aid is used by governments to achieve political gains which could not be achieved otherwise, referring to the political activist groups formerly funded by USAID, many of which are now being funded by the European Union. The speaker also claimed that USAID engaged in both ‘financial fraud’ and ‘ideological fraud’; and welcomed the US House Judiciary Committee’s recent investigation into the late agency’s workings.
András László, MEP for the ruling Fidesz Party in Hungary and State Commissioner in charge of investigating USAID operations in the country, took the stage next. He told the audience that after the dismantlement of the ‘mostly political’ USAID, Hungary now has a new kind of cooperation with the United States under the second Trump administration. Then, he shared that the political activist NGOs have different sources of income, not just US taxpayer money through the former aid agency. Another main source of funding for them is the European Union, with many having received funds from both entities in previous years, he added.
MEP László also revealed that, in Hungary, left-leaning media outlets such as Telex, Átlátszó, and 444.hu have also been funded by the American government and international non-profits such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. So much so that one of these outlets, Radio Free Europe, was forced to cease operations as a radio station after USAID was defunded by the Trump administration.
As for the brief history of the now-infamous US foreign aid agency, MEP László shared that USAID was founded in 1961 by President John F Kennedy. Originally. However, over the years, it turned into a covert political activist operation funding ‘quasi-NGOs’.
The speaker also talked about the USAID’s Central Europe Program, started in 2021, which gave $30–35 million per year to NGOs in Poland, Czechia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and, evidently, Hungary. MEP László cited that number from Hungarian journalist Dániel Hegedüs, who himself is affiliated with the network of progressive NGOs. The Fidesz MEP also noted that Samantha Power, former head of USAID under President Biden, had a close cooperation with Former US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman during his tenure in Budapest.
In August 2022, prime ministerial candidate for the United Opposition Péter Márki-Zay revealed in a live television interview that his political movement had received ‘hundreds of millions of forints’ from American NGOs, MEP László reminded all, which prompted an investigation by the National Information Centre (NIK). That investigation uncovered the network of different organizations funnelling money into opposition groups and opposition-aligned media in Hungary, which, at its top, was even connected to Former US President Barack Obama’s fund, Higher Ground Labs.
MEP László also drew attention to Anita Orbán, whom he desribed as the Foreign Minister candidate for Péter Magyar’s Tisza Party, and who is a member of the Board of Directors of the globalist think tank GLOBSEC.
Up next, a panel of five gathered on stage for an insightful discussion. The panellists were: Executive Director of the Danube Institute István Kiss; Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation Paul McCarthy; Member of the Egyptian House of Representatives Mohamed Farid; and US Correspondent Renaud Beauchard, Chronicler of Tocsin. Chief Advisor for the Danube Institute Noémi Pálfalvi served in the role of the moderator.
Mr Kiss started the discussion by stating that when USAID was founded in 1961, it initially focused on infrastructure projects in developing countries, as opposed to its most recent mode of operation, when they were pushing issues such as LGBTQ+ activism and popularizing modern gender theory in foreign countries. This resulted in less funds for infrastructural projects, he pointed out. The Hungarian government’s Hungary Helps programme, on the other hand, is a great counterexample of effective foreign aid abroad, according to the speaker.
Mr Kiss also shared that in their late stages, USAID propagated ideas about transgederism in other countries that were opposed by about 80 per cent of the population in their home country of the United States.
On that note, Mr Farid opined that the activities of publicly funded foreign aid organizations in each country should align with the interests and priorities of the taxpayers, which used to be the standard. He went on to state that foreign aid organizations were trying to ‘drive normative changes in society’ in his home country of Egypt as well, not just in Hungary. Meanwhile, Mr Beauchard told the audience that when, in early 2025, the new government efficiency agency DOGE exposed the type of ‘woke’ programmes USAID had funded abroad, most people in the American public were shocked. Prior to that, the public perception in the US was that foreign aid went to improve the living conditions of those in need in impoverished countries.
Mr McCarthy revealed that he used to work for the International Republican Institute (IRI), another foreign aid agency that received about 90 per cent of its funding from the US government. He also shared that during his time at IRI, the organization was told which political parties they could and could not work with in other countries. For example, according to Mr McCarthy, IRI was not allowed to have associations with the Patriots for Europe political group in the European Parliament. The speaker also stated that during the Biden administration, the politicization of foreign aid was accelerated.
On the historical percepcective on the matter, Mr McCarthy also pointed out that, during the Cold War, the United States used foreign aid as ‘a tool of American infleunce’ against communism in foreign nations.
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