EnglishThe Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives held a hearing on political abuses of USAID programs, during which programs in Macedonia were among those pointed out as being abused for political purposes. According to Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, the action of USAID in countries such as Macedonia, Hungary and Guatemala were intertwined with the radical left wing campaigns of the George Soros Open Society Foundation and undermined American national interests as conservative majorities in the affected countries grew to doubt the US end goals.
In Hungary, USAD provided funding to the OSF, which went on to spend $781 million between 2016 and 2023 in pursuit of its political agenda. Hungary, less we forget, is a strategically located US ally, whether liberals like its pro-US prime minister or not. And the same thing happened in Macedonia where an adviser to former President Ivanov, also pro-US, told me that USAD and OSF had begun a regime change operation. Dismantling this nexus is critical. This is why President Trump has taken up arms against woke universities, museums, public broadcasters, a battle being played out in the Senate today and other institutions laundering the hard earned money of Americans on behalf of cultural Marxism. However, I also urge this committee to demand a comprehensive audit of USID in government entities to expose how taxpayer money is spent and with whom, said Gonzalez, who was outspoken critic of the USAID programs in Macedonia back in the day of the Colored Revolution, which was used to topple the Gruevski Government, install the Zaev regime and force Macedonia to change its name and national identity.
Gonzalez pointed out that as conservative groups were calling for scrutiny of this “nexus”, USAID funded media outlets such as OCCRP were sent to attack the critics of these abuses.
Regarding the effects of this ideological bias in the US foreign policy, Gonzalez said that it has turned ordinary Macedonians against the US and prompted them to “seek alternatives”, as they were seeing USAID representatives meet and work with opposition officials.
It just didn’t like conservative governments that were trying that were trying to do things like fighting for life for demographic growth in all these countries. All these leaders were also very pro-Israel, pro Taiwan in the case of Guatemala. So I think that it was just a the Biden administration disagreed with the politics of these countries even though it went against US interests to disagree with these governments… It played exactly into Vladimir Putin’s hands. It turned, it made pro-American Hungarians and Guatemalans and Macedonians question the United States and think of alternatives. It was very misguided, Gonzalez added, speaking with Texan congressman Richard Gill.
Another witness, Scott Walter from the Capital Research Foundation, also referenced Macedonia in his back and forth with the Committee chair congressman Jefferson van Drew from New Jersey. Walter warned that these left wing organizations that were receiving US public funding under strict 501c3 rules, were funding terrorism, political campaigns in foreign countries, including the European Parliament elections and should be hel criminally responsible.
Our next report is going to show over $80 million going to nonprofits that support terrorism, and again, that is debatably not kosher under 501c3 laws. But the the way that these network operate is, you have in the case of Soros dozens, even hundreds of things. There’s an Open Society Macedonia. There’s an Open Society Prague and so on. Many of these entities are getting federal tax dollars as well as Mr. Soros’ private money and as Mr. Gonzalez was explaining, they are willing to go up to and including regime change, as well as trying to change who is elected in European elections, Walter said. Congressman Van Drew replied that this is very concerning and that the American people deserve to know all about these abuses.
Other witnesses, such as Tyler O’Neil from Heritage Foundation, pointed to similar activities between US government entities and radical left wing groups at home in the US – in funding left wing protest organizations, climate alarmism that undermined US energy security, promotion of ideological left wing anti-traditional family policies and especially encouraging illegal migration to the US.
