INTERNACIONAL
Trump officials unveil private sector blueprint for life after USAID
Is «Trade Over Aid» replacing USAID?
Fox News Digital gets exclusive access to the U.S. Mission’s «Trade Over Aid» forum in New York as Trump officials, including U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, push private investment over traditional foreign aid.
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EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration is laying out its clearest blueprint yet for what comes after decades of traditional U.S. foreign aid, arguing that private investment, trade and American business — not taxpayer-funded assistance — should become America’s primary engine for development abroad.
At a U.S. Mission to the United Nations «Trade Over Aid» forum in New York Monday, Ambassador Mike Waltz, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that the administration is «completely reforming how we do aid» by moving away from taxpayer-funded programs and toward private-sector-led development.
«For too many years, the United States and other countries have poured billions and billions of dollars into these aid programs and got very little in return,» Waltz said. «You go to these forums at the United Nations and at development agencies around the world, and you never find the private sector. You find NGOs and academics and governments, but you don’t find the creators of growth and the creators of jobs.»
U.S. URGES DONORS TO ABANDON U.N.R.W.A. FUNDING AS U.N. DEFENDS AGENCY’S MISSION
Ambassador Mike Waltz speaks at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations’ «Trade Over Aid» forum in New York, where Trump administration officials pitched private investment as a new engine of global development. July 14, 2026. (Donald Conahan/ U.S. mission to the U.N.)
Waltz said the new model is designed to «create jobs, to create business for American companies in line with America First,» while also raising living standards abroad and reducing instability that can fuel terrorism and poverty.
The administration moved to dismantle USAID in 2025, arguing the agency was inefficient and too often disconnected from U.S. foreign policy. Asked directly whether «Trade Over Aid» is replacing USAID, Waltz said USAID’s functions had been folded into the State Department as part of a broader efficiency effort, but insisted the initiative is about something larger than one agency.
«What we’re doing, this isn’t about USAID or what replaces it,» Waltz said. «That was an efficient effort to get our aid to serve our foreign policy, not the other way around. But what I think is more important is how do we help American businesses and how do (we) help create jobs around the world and reduce dependency.»
The stakes are immediate: with USAID reorganized under the State Department and aid budgets under pressure, the Trump administration is trying to show that it has a replacement model for how the U.S. helps poorer and fragile countries. The answer it is pitching is not more traditional aid, but more private capital, more trade, more deals for American companies and fewer open-ended taxpayer commitments.
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The forum brought together representatives from dozens of countries, U.N. agencies, international financial institutions and major private-sector players, including Microsoft, Google, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Walmart, Mastercard, Meta and others.
Czech Environment Minister Igor Cerveny, who attended the forum, said the idea resonated with his country’s own post-communist experience.
After communism, he said, the Czech Republic had to rebuild through work, business, industry and innovation rather than dependency.
Ambassador Dan Negrea addresses the U.S. Mission to the United Nations’ «Trade Over Aid» forum in New York, July 13, 2026. (Donald Conahan/ U.S. mission to the U.N.)
«If you work on your economy, on your industry, on your society, on nature as well, probably two, three, five years later, (you will) be in a better position,» Cerveny told Fox News Digital. «You have your own money. You are not now the slave of (asking). You are now the master of your destiny.»
Cerveny said trade gives countries an «opportunity to cooperate» rather than forcing them to return again and again with the same request: «Please give me some money.»
Ambassador Dan Negrea, who is spearheading the initiative in the U.S. Mission, told Fox News Digital that shrinking aid budgets around the world make a new model necessary.
«We need to think differently about how we help developing countries in an environment in which, in the United States, we are indebted and we cannot continue to spend money on helping other countries the way we used to,» Negrea said. «Development aid is going down not only in the U.S., but in countries around the world.»
Negrea said the initiative has received less resistance from developing countries than from traditional donor nations.
«Interestingly, there is less pushback from countries receiving aid than from some donor countries that like to continue in this attitude of charity, being magnanimous to other countries,» he told Fox News Digital. «For years and years and for decades, many developing countries are saying that they want to end this status of recipient of charity and move to a much more dignified relationship of partners and development.»
But some leaders from developing countries also warn that trade cannot replace aid overnight, especially in emergency settings. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation, and Francophonie, Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, told Fox News Digital that aid remains critical in crises such as the Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC.
«Aid sometimes can transform dramatically a situation,» she said. «This is not something you can change overnight with trade. But yes, over a long term, trade is the pathway to create greater growth, greater economic prosperity, and therefore also more equal relationships between countries.»
Kayikwamba Wagner added that the shift must be «adapted to circumstances» and not be «too abrupt.»
The initiative already has drawn 46 countries, and launched a digital library with 63 capacity-building offers from private companies, governments, NGOs, philanthropies, academic institutions and international organizations.
But when pressed on what those offers have produced so far, Negrea acknowledged the initiative is still in its early stages. The library was inaugurated last week, he said, and the goal now is to turn offers into concrete outcomes.
«We want to see more deliverables,» Negrea said. «We want to see actual transactions that were done. We want to see countries using the digital library to see usable capacity building offers coming from around the world. So we want to help without the cost to the U.S. taxpayers, but at the same time creating opportunities for American companies.»
The central challenge facing the effort is whether private capital will go where aid has traditionally been most needed: fragile countries with weak institutions, unreliable infrastructure, corruption, conflict or markets too risky for major investors.
WALTZ CALLS U.N. A ‘CESSPOOL FOR ANTISEMITISM’ AS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PUSHES MAJOR REFORMS
Ambassador Dan Negrea moderates a panel at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations’ «Trade Over Aid» forum in New York, joined by Czech Environment Minister Igor Cerveny and other participants. (Donald Conahan/ U.S. mission to the U.N.)
Waltz argued that is exactly where institutions such as the U.N. Development Program, the World Bank and the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation can play a role.
«When we talk to organizations like J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and others, they’re saying, we want to invest hundreds of millions into these industries abroad, but they need better laws, they need better arbitration,» Waltz said. «We need to know that we can get our money out for our investors here in the United States.»
He said the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and U.S. contributions to the World Bank can provide «risk insurance and guarantees» for investments in riskier markets, including critical minerals projects needed by the U.S. technology sector.
«It is incredibly risky,» Waltz said. «Sometimes these capital providers like on Wall Street and in New York are only going to go to the safest place. Sometimes it makes sense, for example, as we’re looking for critical minerals for our tech industry, to go into risky places, but they need a little help.»
The strongest note of caution came not from critics outside the room, but from inside the forum itself.
Alexander De Croo, the former Belgian prime minister who now leads United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said trade and aid should not be treated as enemies.
«Trade is a destination, but development is how we get to that destination,» De Croo said. «Markets do not build themselves. They have to be built.»
De Croo said investment flows when rules are predictable, institutions are trusted and workers have the skills to seize opportunity. He described UNDP’s role as helping countries build those foundations. «There is no country over the past decades that has successfully developed without a strong private sector and without trade being a big part of that,» he said.
Christopher Sharrock, Microsoft’s vice president for United Nations and international organizations, also warned that aid still has a role that markets cannot fully replace.
«Aid does do an essential job and it does a job that possibly nothing else can do,» Sharrock said, pointing to vaccination campaigns, famine response and natural disasters as areas where assistance remains critical.
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Alexander De Croo, UNDP administrator and former Belgian prime minister, speaks at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations’ «Trade Over Aid» forum in New York, July 13, 2026. (Donald Conahan/ U.S. mission to the U.N.)
For the Trump administration, «Trade Over Aid» is being pitched as a more disciplined, America First answer to development: fewer handouts, more deals, less dependency, more jobs for American companies and foreign partners alike.
But the test will be whether it can deliver not only in countries already ready for investment, but in the hardest places — the places where aid has long filled the gap because markets would not.
united nations, aid, trade, world
INTERNACIONAL
“No se borra encontrar cuerpos de niños”: El lado humano del rescate salvadoreño en Venezuela
El relato de César Armando Marroquín, coordinador de equipos tácticos de Protección Civil de El Salvador, expuso en televisión la dimensión más cruda y humana del operativo salvadoreño en Venezuela tras los devastadores terremotos.
La vivencia de hallar cuerpos, especialmente de niños, marcó a los rescatistas y definió el tono de una misión atravesada por la empatía, la resiliencia y la solidaridad internacional.
“No se borra encontrar cuerpos de niños”, reconoció Marroquín durante la entrevista en el programa Frente a Frente, donde repasó las jornadas más duras y los aprendizajes de una labor que va mucho más allá de la técnica.
El equipo salvadoreño, integrado por 300 personas de distintas instituciones, llegó a territorio venezolano con el objetivo claro de salvar vidas y colaborar en la remoción de escombros.
La realidad superó cualquier expectativa: enfrentaron jornadas de hasta doce horas, bajo calor intenso, y el peso emocional de buscar sobrevivientes entre estructuras colapsadas.
Las imágenes de familias destruidas y la experiencia de rescatar cuerpos de menores quedaron grabadas en la memoria de los especialistas. “Las labores en edificaciones muchas veces son muy terribles, porque tienes que observar diferentes tipos de escenarios”, relató Marroquín ante las cámaras.
La vivencia de los rescatistas fue acompañada por una atención psicológica permanente. Según explicó el coordinador de Protección Civil, cada integrante del equipo recibió sesiones de soporte emocional tanto en Venezuela como a su regreso. “Se hace una interfaz de los momentos vividos con el actual para poder llegar a un contexto normal de su situación laboral”, detalló Marroquín en la entrevista recogida por Frente a Frente.
Además, el impacto de ingresar a espacios reducidos, encontrar cuerpos y, en ocasiones, rescatar personas con vida, exige una fortaleza emocional que solo se cultiva con preparación y acompañamiento.
El testimonio de Marroquín incluyó escenas de tensión máxima, como la operación de rescate de una mujer atrapada junto a su pareja fallecida. “Al encontrar vida, haces hasta lo humanamente posible, técnicamente, para extraerla”, afirmó el coordinador. La intervención del componente médico de Fosalud fue clave: personal entrenado en estabilización y rescate se internó en los escombros para asistir a las víctimas, controlando riesgos y evitando complicaciones médicas.
La solidaridad se manifestó no solo en la colaboración internacional, sino también en la decisión de no abandonar el terreno mientras persista la posibilidad de encontrar sobrevivientes o entregar cuerpos a sus familiares. “No es abandonar a un pueblo que lo necesita”, sentenció Marroquín, en línea con la instrucción presidencial de mantener la presencia salvadoreña hasta el final de la emergencia.
La misión ha sorteado numerosos desafíos, desde la complejidad estructural de los edificios hasta la presión de las familias por obtener noticias de sus seres queridos. La remoción de escombros requirió maquinaria pesada enviada desde El Salvador y el trabajo coordinado con autoridades venezolanas. Se estableció un hospital de campaña y se distribuyeron 155 toneladas de suministros médicos y de primera necesidad para atender las demandas inmediatas de la población.
El hospital de campaña permanece activo, brindando servicios tanto a heridos como a quienes sufren quebrantos emocionales tras la pérdida de familiares. En lo logístico, el equipo de Protección Civil implementó relevos operativos para evitar golpes de calor y fatiga extrema.
Desde su cama de hospital, Marlene Santana, sobreviviente de dos terremotos, relata con una sonrisa el momento en que los rescatistas le dieron agua a través de una manguera, y a la peculiar petición de una Coca Cola. (Infobae Centroamérica/EFE)
A pesar de la magnitud de la emergencia, todos los rescatistas salvadoreños regresaron sanos y salvos. Al regresar, los integrantes del equipo pasaron por controles médicos y recibieron apoyo psicológico para procesar las experiencias vividas.
El compromiso salvadoreño sigue vigente. La operación humanitaria continúa en la zona, con la presencia de personal médico, rescatistas y apoyo logístico para la remoción de escombros y la atención a la población. La experiencia en Venezuela, sumada a misiones anteriores en países como Turquía, fortalece la preparación de los equipos tácticos y deja un aprendizaje clave: más allá de la técnica, es la humanidad la que sostiene cada rescate y acompaña a quienes enfrentan el dolor de la pérdida.
corresponsal:Desde San Salvador, El Salvador
Senate resumes Todd Blanche confirmation hearing amid fiery testimony
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche faces renewed scrutiny during his Senate confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway provides expert analysis on Blanche’s performance, highlighting his focus on law enforcement priorities and crime reduction. Senators question Blanche’s independence and prior actions in the Justice Department.
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The Trump administration took the fight over who controls U.S. attorney appointments to a whole new level, firing a Seattle-based prosecutor less than an hour after he was picked for the job without the blessing of the administration.
«District court judges can appoint a temporary U.S. Attorney, and POTUS can fire them,» acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote Wednesday on X as he was testifying before the Senate in his confirmation hearing, calling out a U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington state panel for elevating Judge Roger Rogoff to be the top federal prosecutor in Seattle.
«WDWA judges abandoned the time-honored process of consultation with the administration so that the selected U.S. Attorney is qualified to serve in the administration,» Blanche said. «Roger Rogoff has been fired by the President.»
That post came after Rogoff, 57, a former King County Superior Court judge and longtime state and federal prosecutor, was sworn in before 8 a.m. local time at the federal courthouse in downtown Seattle as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington.
TRUMP’S AG NOMINEE RACKS UP MASSIVE SUPPORT AHEAD OF CONFIRMATION HEARING: ‘REAL RESULTS’
Judge Roger Rogoff spent 20 years as a state prosecutor and six as a federal prosecutor before becoming a state judge, and admitted he knew the administration might fire him immediately but did not reject taking on «the best job there is.» (Ted S. Warren/AP)
He then went to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and asked to meet with Charles Neil Floyd, the Trump administration’s preferred choice for the job, whose 120-day interim term expired in February.
While Rogoff waited in the lobby, he received an email notifying him that Trump had removed him from office.
Rogoff’s situation was not mentioned in Blanche’s Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, but Blanche is back before the Senate again Thursday and Rogoff now might be a notable topic of discussion during his confirmation process.
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The quick dismissal came after all 17 active and senior federal judges in the deep-blue district appointed Rogoff to the vacancy. The judges, appointed by five presidents (10 by Democrats and seven by Republicans), had opened an application process after the administration did not send Floyd’s nomination to the Senate and instead kept him in place by making him first assistant U.S. attorney while leaving the top job vacant.
U.S. attorneys, who serve as the Justice Department’s chief federal prosecutors in each district, are normally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Federal law allows the attorney general to name an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days. If that period expires without a confirmed nominee, district judges may appoint someone to serve until the vacancy is filled.
Because of obstruction by Democrats in the narrowly held Senate, the Trump administration has resorted to using acting titles and other personnel moves to keep its prosecutors in place. Courts have pushed back in several Democrat-heavy districts like Seattle and New Jersey, issuing legal challenges to the Justice Department and White House authority.
«I don’t think it’s the way to run the Department of Justice,» Rogoff told The New York Times. «When you have this sort of made up way of putting people in these positions, the process breaks down.»
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., opposed Floyd for the U.S. attorney job and blasted Rogoff’s quick firing.
«Throughout his career, he has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to public service, and he was appointed legally by the federal judges in the Western District of Washington,» Murray wrote in a statement. «This administration doesn’t want to deal with advice and consent — they just want to install cronies to carry out a corrupt political agenda.»
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Trump administration officials have long noted that the «advise and consent» role of the Senate does not grant Democrats against Trump’s administrative priorities to be a hard block on his agenda and nominees, though.
Rogoff has retained an employment law firm and is considering a legal challenge to his firing.
Fox News Digital reached out to Rogoff for comment.
The Seattle clash follows similar disputes elsewhere. In New Jersey, Alina Habba resigned as the top federal prosecutor after an appeals court said she had been serving unlawfully. In Virginia, Lindsey Halligan left an acting U.S. attorney post after a judge found her appointment unlawful and dismissed indictments she had brought against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
The administration has also fired court-appointed U.S. attorneys in other districts.
Rogoff, who spent 20 years as a state prosecutor and six as a federal prosecutor before becoming a state judge, said he knew the administration might fire him immediately. Despite this, he said he had no qualms about the potential conflict he was walking into, because being U.S. attorney is «the best job there is.»
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«I’m really proud of my career,» Rogoff said. «The fact that the judges of this district — most of whom I’ve spent my career appearing in front of, or trying cases against, or working with — believed that I was the right person to do this work is just really humbling and amazing.»
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
justice department, todd blanche, politics, federal judges, white house
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