U.S. freeze on foreign aid may give China a leg up
As the U.S. steps back on foreign aid, experts worry China may step in to fill the void.
The Trump administration's freeze on U.S. foreign aid could leave room for adversaries like China to step in.
That's the concern experts expressed to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations during a hearing Thursday on China's malign influence. U.S. senators sought feedback on policies the administration should consider to address Chinese-backed disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks and election interference.
Earlier this week, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo temporarily pausing federal agencies' disbursement of funds, including foreign aid. While the White House rescinded the OMB memo due to backlash and legal challenges, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X that the move is "not a rescission of the federal funding freeze."
"I am deeply concerned by the administration's stop work order and foreign aid freeze, actions that can only lead to human suffering and endanger our national security," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the committee’s ranking member, said during the hearing. "They undermine America's credibility and they give an opening to countries like China and Russia, who are very happy to fill the void that we leave."
U.S. hits pause on foreign aid
The foreign aid freeze limits the U.S.'s ability to compete with China, said Melanie Hart, senior director of the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub. Hart spoke as a witness during the Senate hearing.
Hart said the government had frozen more than $1 billion in foreign military financing for Taiwan and stopped funding for multiple human rights organizations. She said Washington D.C. has "effectively abandoned" the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.
Hart said she applauded Secretary of State Marco Rubio's attempts to lift some foreign aid restrictions, including waiving the pause of life-saving humanitarian aid during the spending freeze. However, she noted that the pause on foreign aid assistance is a "massive gift to Beijing."
"This broad freeze hobbles America at a moment when we are in the battle of the century," she said. "The longer it goes on, the harder it will be to regain the ground we are already losing."
Jennifer Lind, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College and a hearing witness, said it's understandable for the administration to "take a short pause" and assess its use of tools like foreign aid.
However, she said the federal government should also recognize the value of foreign aid, which she described as a critical tool along with diplomacy and military assistance.
"Foreign aid is a really important arrow in the quiver of U.S. national security," she said. "Ideally, we would want to be using all of our different tools in a coordinated fashion to achieve our objectives."
U.S. senator concerned about academia and China
Committee chair Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) said during the hearing that colleges and universities serve as "target-rich" places for China.
Risch said he's concerned about "hundreds of thousands of Chinese students" studying in the U.S. and possibly carrying information back to China.
Jeffrey Stoff, founder of the Center for Research Security and Integrity and a hearing witness, raised concerns about China's access to U.S. research systems via universities and colleges, noting academia's "widespread disregard for security or ethical concerns."
"It is past time to have candid and uncomfortable conversations about the current state of how the PRC's unfettered access to our research ecosystem and its malign influence activities have profound effects on our national and economic security," Stoff said.
Makenzie Holland is a senior news writer covering big tech and federal regulation. Prior to joining Informa TechTarget, she was a general assignment reporter for the Wilmington StarNews and a crime and education reporter at the Wabash Plain Dealer.
