On Sunday, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency gained access to the United States Agency for International Development’s, or U.S.A.I.D., classified information system, after putting two officials who denied his team clearance on leave. On Wednesday, the agency was forced to announce that virtually all of its 10,000 employees would be placed on leave. The program, which has saved upwards of 35 million lives across the globe and is a critical proponent of American soft power, will be folded into the State Department and essentially shut down. 

This could be illegal. Congress has appropriated money to be used on the program; the president isn’t allowed to unilaterally cut spending. Nor are untrained, uncleared, temporary government employees allowed access to closely guarded national security information.

It’s also morally unacceptable. Trump’s order for a 90-day pause in foreign aid has irreparably damaged PEPFAR — the organization that, for pennies on the American taxpayer’s dollar, saves the lives of hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive mothers and their babies. We, residents of the richest country in the history of the world, have an obligation to help the sick and destitute, even if they’re thousands of miles away.

But providing foreign aid to countries that need it isn’t just an ethical duty. It’s central to the way America engages with the rest of the world. And it’s central to the way that we project power and goodwill. That creates a bit of a dilemma for the program’s supporters. You only have limited time and resources to fight against the Trump administration. Do you focus on the illegality of the order, hoping that the American public still believes in process? Do you try to generate public backlash by appealing to the shutdown’s immorality? Or do you appeal to national self-interest, by explaining the strategic case for continued aid?

I think the last of those three options is the most effective. And the idea that the best way to persuade is to align with people’s interests, even in situations where there is a greater moral obligation, isn’t a new one. A 2,400-year-old example of this comes from Thucydides’s “History of the Peloponnesian Wars.” 

When the Athenians captured Mytilene, a rebellious city on the island of Lesbos, they were left with the question of what to do with its inhabitants. In the first debate, the Athenian assembly voted to execute every adult male and enslave the rest of the population. They were quickly filled with remorse, though and so held a second meeting to decide whether the initial order should be recalled.

Diodotus, speaking after Cleon, is the one who argues against the mass killings. He tells the audience that they must act in their own interests, regardless of the guilt of the Mytilenians. They’re a political assembly, not a court of law. The case Diodotus makes is completely strategic and hard-headed — but he hints at being against the massacre on ethical grounds. One of his arguments is broadly applicable: to preserve international power, it is better to “voluntarily put up with injustice” done against you on this small scale than it is to “justly” massacre the offenders. In preserving American hegemony, it’s better to let a couple dollars slip through the cracks than it is to put vast swathes of the planet at risk of sickness and death.

Like Cleon, the Trump administration is making a serious strategic mistake. China’s Belt and Road builds infrastructure quickly but saddles countries with vast debts. USAID allows us to build goodwill over longer periods of time. That means a stable flow of aid is crucial — and stability is exactly what Trump and Elon are disrupting. We’re already picking fights with Canada, Mexico, Panama and Denmark. We don’t need much of sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Southeast Asia to see us as unreliable allies as well. For all of the new administration’s Monroe Doctrine bona fides, his new foreign policy would stop an anti-coca production program in Peru and already seems to be turning Latin American leaders away from the United States.

It’s not just about keeping other countries friendly. Richer countries with working populations and secure political institutions are more likely to be viable locations for U.S. commercial expansion. A steadier, more interconnected world will be a safer place for our interests. In September 2024, U.S.A.I.D. signed a $600 million agreement with the African Development Bank to strengthen the Sahel, the site of recent military coups by Russian mercenaries and the new home of the Islamic State, or ISIS. Now the web page for U.S.A.I.D.’s West African projects is down, and the road ahead for the Sahel will be even more treacherous. But of course, precarious regions with anti-American governments have never been sanctuaries for international terrorism before. 

Diodotus ends his speech by saying that those who act with wisdom are “more formidable to their enemies than those who rush madly into strong action.” We’re lacking that wisdom in Washington right now.

TEDDY WITT is a first year in Berkeley College. His biweekly column “The American Crisis” explores history, politics and current events in America and at Yale. He can be reached at teddy.witt@yale.edu.