Carl Mabbs-Zeno of Peterborough is a veteran of governmental diplomacy and aid abroad, and on Monday, he shared his thoughts into the likely impact of the Trump administration’s scaling back of American assistance overseas.

“Foreign aid isn’t charity; it furthers U.S. interests,” said Mabbs-Zeno, whose career included a quarter-century at the United States Agency for International Development, as well as at the State Department as a senior adviser on foreign assistance.

Mabbs-Zeno noted that aid is better thought of as “soft power,” an approach to international relations that has an impact without force or coercion. Some broad categories of American assistance via USAID include economic development, health and humanitarian assistance, peace and security, democracy and governance and educational and social services. 

Foreign aid from the United States dates back to food assistance to Europe after World War I, and the Marshall Plan after World War II is perhaps the best-known example. Mabbs-Zeno said that as Americans are known for this work, “my No. 1 tool when traveling for the government was my passport. I remember being the first or second U.S. adviser in Albania, a former communist bloc nation, and they loved Americans there.”

USAID work has provided tools and assistance around the globe since initiated by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, and Mabbs-Zeno, a trained economist who worked in over 50 countries, is baffled at recent policy changes in Washington shelving many of USAID’s efforts.

“I don’t know what people there are thinking,” he said. Examples of cuts in the agency’s support include a 99% drop in funding for basic education, 97% less for training in good governance and a 92% cut in maternal and child health, according to the Center for Global Development.

The agency posted an announcement on its site on Feb. 23, stating that “all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally. Concurrently, USAID is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force that will affect approximately 1,600 USAID personnel with duty stations in the United States.”

“USAID was trustworthy until two months ago," said Mabbs-Zeno, who remains in touch with former colleagues who are hearing the reaction abroad. “Now, that trust is gone, and (my former colleagues) are telling me that it will be very hard to get back.”

In 2024, assistance abroad came to 0.3% of the federal budget, according to the U.S. Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget. This was down from the previous year, when aid came to 1.2% of that 2023’s total federal outlays of more than $6.1 trillion, per the Pew Research center. 

“People are uninformed,” said Mabbs-Zeno when asked why there are complaints about how much money goes abroad. “They don’t know what we do, so how do they know how much money is involved? The media doesn’t help with much education on that score.”

 He added that concerns about resources going where they should are unfounded. 

“USAID funds are very well-protected. There are lawyers everywhere, so graft and waste -- not issues. There’s no basis for the ‘waste’ complaints. The DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) people have no idea what they’re doing,” Mabbs-Zeno said, adding that USAID people are apolitical.

After his education was interrupted by the Vietnam War, he earned a doctorate in economics. Prior to USAID, Mabbs-Zeno worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture where he studied famine, which included monitoring desert locusts. 

“We’ve eliminated nature-based famines. All famines now are man-made, usually political,” he said.

Mabbs-Zeno explained that although President George W. Bush’s administration neglected the Tropical Seas Program, it initiated the PEPFAR program to combat HIV. This program is estimated to have saved 25 million lives globally.

“In general, Republicans are more competent in managing aid than Democrats,” he said.

Beyond the human toll of the world’s richest nation cutting funds from aid to others, Mabbs-Zeno noted the vacuum that this creates. 

“Other nations, such as China and Russia could fill some voids,” he said. “China might build roads where they hadn't previously existed somewhere, but the U.S. would build the medical clinics on the road.”  

Mabbs-Zeno expressed bafflement at how Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a big supporter of USAID when a senator, has turned against the notion of foreign aid since joining Trump’s cabinet. 

Mabbs-Zeno provided details of providing aid to areas around Kosovo in the 1990s.

“We got receipts for everything,” he said.

Mabbs-Zeno said that he was very conspicuous in his work, which makes him suspect under the current administration.

“I’ve got a former colleague who knows my work, and has said, ‘Don’t email me here,’” he said.

For all the concern about finances in America, Mabbs-Zeno notes that many in the world couldn’t dream of the standard of living most people here enjoy. This point led to a discussion of children at a school in Haiti existing on one meal a day provided by Americans.

“People at USAID have mortgages and bills to pay here, but they worry about those people back in Albania and elsewhere, because they understand these differences,” he said.

Mabbs-Zeno has a theory when asked why the current administration targeted foreign aid early in this term.

“They knew people wouldn't defend it,” he said. “They’re opposed to it because the previous administration supported it.”

Asked what he wished people understood about the merit to foreign aid, Mabbs-Zeno didn’t hesitate.

“We helped people in former communist countries write laws for their new form of government,” he said. “There’s so much power in soft power.”

Since retiring, Mabbs-Zeno has become a prolific author, producing books on everything from a Vietnam experience to an English teacher far from home to a night in a city during a terrible storm. Most recently he was elected as a Peterborough representative to the ConVal School Board. Asked why he would devote his energies to evening meetings about education in a conference room after decades of helping people in faraway lands have better lives, he didn’t need to think about his answer.

“I want young people to be able to read and to understand the world,” he said.