Open in TheBrain

Primoroc Max Usaid

PJT 2025 HERITAGE

GUT USAID PARIS

After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, he served in the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government that controlled Iraq until 2004, and he held State Department positions focused on Iraq during the rest of the Bush administration.


PP

In early 2018, an incoming Trump political appointee and ally of Vice President Mike Pence made an unusual suggestion to a United Nations agency whose funding hinged on support from a skeptical Trump administration: He pitched them to do business with one of his private-sector clients.

“Might merit your team’s consideration,” Max Primorac wrote in January, weeks before he formally started at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he would eventually become an adviser to Pence.

The client pitch by an incoming official sparked a complaint a month later from an anonymous State Department official, according to documents obtained by ProPublica. The U.N. agency, the United Nations Development Program in Iraq, had by then received over $190 million in funding from USAID, the complaint said....[DOC]

Primorac, an incoming USAID official, pushes the interests of a client weeks before joining the Trump administration, in this email released to ProPublica through a public records request.

Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Primorac’s email demonstrated “poor judgment,” given the significant financial contribution that USAID makes to the UNDP.

“He wasn’t yet subject to the government standards of conduct, but he was right on the threshold of that,” Canter said. “He gave the appearance that he was using the office he was about to take for the private interests of his client.”

Primorac’s pitch did not result in UNDP business for his former client. But it is the latest instance to come to light of Primorac’s behavior raising eyebrows among some of his colleagues in the U.S. government. Last year, Primorac expressed confidence during a State Department forum that President Donald Trump would win reelection, a comment that drew a complaint to an independent agency, which determined that Primorac did not violate a law forbidding government officials from engaging in political activities on the job.

And ProPublica reported last year that in the midst of a drive by the White House, particularly by Pence’s office, to steer more USAID funding to Christians in Iraq, Primorac publicly praised a charity primarily serving Iraqi Christians that had applied for funding, months before the final grants were announced.

An acting USAID spokesperson, Pooja Jhunjhunwala, did not respond to specific questions about Primorac’s email but said the agency “has an extensive system of ethics training, mandatory reporting, legal review, recusal and counseling procedures.” Primorac did not respond to questions.

(In August, nearly three months after this story was published, Jhunjhunwala forwarded ProPublica a report from the inspector general’s office signed March 30, 2018, stating the watchdog would not open an investigation into the complaint due “to the non-systemic nature of the alleged conflict of interest and lack of investigative resources.”)

In the Jan. 10 email, Primorac touted Qi Card, an Iraqi debit card, and suggested that the UNDP use it for transactions. Primorac identified his client as Markez, a U.S. firm hired at the time by Qi Card’s parent company to help build the card’s customer base, according to Mark Crego, a former Markez adviser.

The ethics complaint by the State Department official noted that the UNDP was a major USAID funding recipient as it tried to rebuild parts of Iraq destroyed by a protracted war with the Islamic State militant group. Pence had made clear that U.S. support to the UNDP was in jeopardy when he said in October 2017 that the Trump administration would stop funding “ineffective” U.N. programs in Iraq and criticized the organization for not doing enough to help Iraqi Christians.

ProPublica reported last year that career USAID and State Department officials came under sustained White House pressure, particularly from Pence’s office, to give more money to Christians in Iraq, which along with other religious minorities make up about 2% to 3% of the country’s population. In addition to the public criticism of the U.N. by Pence in October 2017, Trump appointees pushed in internal meetings for USAID to pay more attention to Christians.

There is no evidence that Primorac’s email resulted in new business for Markez, which originally launched as a construction company before taking on the biometric card project. “UNDP Iraq has not had any business with Qi Card,” Dylan Lowthian, a UNDP spokesman, said.

Primorac’s email to the UNDP surfaced as part of a broader records request from ProPublica, seeking complaints made to the USAID watchdog about the agency’s work in Iraq between 2017 and 2019. The agency responded by releasing 133 pages of documents, the majority of which consisted of USAID-funded organizations self-reporting potential misconduct by employees. Two complaints focused on Primorac, the only USAID official whose conduct was questioned in the emails released to ProPublica.

The second complaint about Primorac in the documents accused him of favoring one Iraqi Christian sect over another as he disbursed U.S. funding to groups in the country’s north. Insiders who are familiar with the dynamics of the Iraqi Christian community said they were skeptical of that complaint’s merit.

Primorac has moved back and forth between the government and private sector in the past two decades.

After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, he served in the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S. occupation government that controlled Iraq until 2004, and he held State Department positions focused on Iraq during the rest of the Bush administration.

He then launched the Washington, D.C.-based consulting company Between Two Rivers LLC, and his clients included the governments of Japan, Canada and Iraq, according to archived versions of the firm’s website.

Primorac consulted for Markez as the company enlisted well-connected advisers in Washington to build business for the Qi Card, used by millions of Iraqi pensioners and state workers. International Smart Card, an Iraqi company partly owned by two state banks, had hired Markez to find new U.S. customers, Crego said.

In his January 2018 email to UNDP officials, Primorac suggested the agency could use the Qi Card for transactions.

“Full disclosure: the (redacted) for Qi Card, US-based Markez, is my client, though I am shutting down my practice end of this month,” Primorac wrote.

Read More

[

How Mike Pence’s Office Meddled in Foreign Aid to Reroute Money to Favored Christian Groups](https://www.propublica.org/article/how-mike-pences-office-meddled-in-foreign-aid-to-reroute-money-to-favored-christian-groups)

Markez, founded more than a decade ago in Maryland by Iraqi American businessman Samer Skooti, initially focused on construction. The firm expanded into project management, and International Smart Card hired Markez to provide “subject matter expertise” and help it comply with international standards, Skooti said in an interview.

International Smart Card paid for lobbying that Markez conducted in 2016 and 2017 on “promotion of biometric payments,” according to lobbying records.

The business relationship between Markez and Primorac lasted no more than three months, Skooti said. “It was a project-based engagement.”

Primorac joined USAID in February 2018 in its Middle East bureau. Tensions at USAID peaked in June 2018, when Pence was displeased by new grants in Iraq, which had gone to large, established aid groups and not local Christian organizations. USAID officials scrambled to create new programs and convince Pence and his staff that the agency was paying enough attention to Christians and Yazidis, another religious minority in Iraq.

Amid the upheaval, Primorac was elevated in late 2018 to a new role based in northern Iraq: USAID’s special representative for minority assistance programs. He has described himself as the vice president’s “special envoy,” briefed Pence’s office on his work and is known among U.S. officials for his close working relationship with Pence’s staff. Since returning from Iraq several months ago, he has taken on an expanded role, as chief adviser for international religious freedom to USAID’s administrator, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Pence’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

---

GGL 6 26

Max Primorac, a former USAID official and Senior Research Fellow at ⁠The Heritage Foundation, has been a leading voice calling for the complete dismantling of USAID. He argues the agency has devolved into an ideological tool for the far-Left, funding progressive social agendas and NGOs instead of advancing core U.S. national security interests. [1, 2, 3]

Core Positions and Heritage Research

Notable Publications and Media

To read his full catalog of commentaries and research reports detailing the conservative critique of the U.S. aid apparatus, visit the Max Primorac Author Page on The Heritage Foundation website.

Congress.gov

the usaid betrayal - Congress.gov

Feb 13, 2025 — February 13, 2025. Max Primorac. Senior Research Fellow, The Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. The Heritage Foundation. My nam...

House.gov

Hearing Wrap Up: America-First Foreign Aid Protects U.S. ...

Feb 27, 2025 — Max Primorac, a Former USAID Official who now serves as a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, described how U.S. fo...

The Heritage Foundation

The U.S. Foreign Aid Complex: Missionaries of Nihilism

Oct 7, 2025 — KEY TAKEAWAYS We must also recruit from the pool of graduates from traditional institutions of higher learning that believe in the...

House.gov

Foreign-Aid Group Faces Reckoning over Support for DEI Ideology

Jun 19, 2024 — This is a moment for us to find common ground to move forward together to tackle the challenges that the world is presenting some ...

YouTube·Associated Press

LIVE: House Foreign Affairs Committee holds hearing on ' ...

Feb 13, 2025 — let me get this committee on Foreign Affairs will come to order i ask that everybody in the room regardless of your. position plea...

19m

The Heritage Foundation

How USAID Went Woke and Destroyed Itself

Feb 10, 2025 — Feb 10, 2025 4 min read. Max Primorac. Senior Research Fellow, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Max is a Senior Research Fell...

The Heritage Foundation

America’s Broken Foreign Aid Apparatus - The Heritage Foundation

Mar 21, 2024 — Max is a Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation. The U.S. government has sp...

Responsible Statecraft

After shuttering USAID, Trump launches new foreign aid strategy

Feb 10, 2026 — This structure is designed to encourage foreign governments to take steps to eventually be in a place where they require no foreig...

Facebook·The Heritage Foundation

Foreign aid should be a tool to advance our national ...

Feb 26, 2025 — Foreign aid should be a tool to advance our national security interests. USAID was used as a global platform to push anti-American...

4:20

The Heritage Foundation

Max Primorac - The Heritage Foundation

Feb 13, 2026 — Commentary. An Islamist state on NATO's border? Max Primorac. Feb 13, 2026 3 min read. External Type. Ending 30 Years of Failed Na...

---

test

:{My name is Max Primorac. I am a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. I previously served at the U.S. Agency for International Development and U.S. Department of State. I’ve dedicated 35 years to international relations work. The views I express in this testimony are my own and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation. President Donald :{Trump’s decision to shutter USAID reflects the agency’s loss of trust of the American people, especially over the last four years. It exposes a bureaucracy and foreign aid sector that went off the ideological rails and no longer reflects the will or values of the American people.}:

What should be an effective tool of U.S. foreign policy has turned into a highly partisan global vehicle focused on spending ever higher amounts of money instead of achieving concrete outcomes consistent with American interests; imposing radical social ideas that are divisive at home and cause resentment abroad; and refusing to be held accountable to Congress and American taxpayers who fund them. Advocates portray USAID’s shut down as a danger to our national security, citing programs to counter Communist China’s global ambitions, to protect us from the global spread of infectious diseases, and provide life-saving humanitarian aid.

I understand the importance of these programs having served at USAID where I co-chaired a counter-China interagency working group, oversaw containment of two Ebola outbreaks in Africa, and launched and led the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance. Yet, USAID’s obsession with identity politics, gender fluidity, population control, and climate fanaticism undermined these goals as a flood of media articles now inform Americans of massive waste, fraud, and abuse of their money. Every single project has been corrupted by this radical agenda. USAID’s leadership failed in its most basic fiduciary responsibility to avoid the kind of reputational risks that would imperil the agency’s public legitimacy in Congress and the American public at large. They have also done harm. Instead of deploying aid to strengthen alliances, USAID forced Africans to rely on Chinese solar}:

:{:{panels and wind turbines and adopt climate strategies that are financially unrealistic. USAID directives on gender ideology and population control enflamed African government, religious, and civic leaders who mostly hold conservative views. Many told me, “The Chinese do not require us to reject our religious values to do business with them like you do. Why are you pushing us into their arms?”}:

At a panel on Africa, I moderated, a Nigerian Governor related his conversation with the previous USAID Administrator about linking humanitarian aid with adopting the LGBT agenda. He said, “I told her we would rather starve than violate our Christian faith.” Visting Africa twice last year I learned from religious leaders that millions of Africans were praying for President Trump to be re-elected president, revealing the mass social trauma resulting from this unwanted cultural imperialism. USAID also failed in its defining mission to alleviate poverty and reduce hunger. It exacerbated both. Its climate programs helped increase world energy prices that hit the poor hardest, making natural gas}:

:{:{based fertilizers unaffordable for poor farmers and reducing their crop yields}:. It blocked financing to developing countries seeking to develop their fossil fuel endowment needed to generate jobs and revenues to finance health, education and other social services, locking them into permanent poverty and aid dependency. USAID’s humanitarian aid system is broken. In Gaza, American aid financed Hamas’scampaign to exterminate Israel. Similarly in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria where we lack physical presence to ensure that our aid is not being diverted to terrorists. Our aid has been sustaining war economies. USAID failed to properly manage the billions of dollars entrusted to it.

This committee’s investigation discovered that USAID partners were charging 50% or more for overhead. A government audit showed that USAID could not account for overhead charges of over $142 billion in awards. According to federal elections commission data, billions of dollars of taxpayer money has been financing a oneparty progressive aid industry that systematically discriminates against the American people. So, what next? I recently wrote: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio has the daunting task of separating the wheat from the chafe, preserving those foreign aid programs that reflect American values and align with U.S. interests.” The Secretary must figure out with Congress how to restructure a broken foreign aid apparatus that is aligned with our national security needs and does not violate American values.

President Trump’s leadership has created a unique opportunity to fast track reforms of our broken foreign aid apparatus. Secretary Rubio might look at the reforms made during the last Trump administration. The starting point was that “the purpose of foreign aid is to end it.” Foreign aid is NOT an international welfare program. USAID is NOT an international NGO. A robust counter-China infrastructure, dismantled by Biden, should be restored. We must end reliance on corrupt U.N. agencies, international NGOs and for-profit contractors and work directly with local Church-run institutions and private businesses that share our values and value a strategic relationship with America. Traditional aid models must be scrapped in favor of increasing trade and investment, the time-tested hallmarks of poverty reduction.

:{:{The aid budget can be cut by at least half and produce better outcomes for American taxpayers. }:But the Secretary needs the help of Congress. Why should pro-Hamas South Africa, China’s main ally in Africa, receive billions in foreign aid? It is time to cut off countries that do us harm and support our allies instead.

---

fulcrum beau Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter toProject 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum'scross partisan analysis of Project 2025relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquingProject 2025.

South African divestment is the most famous, and likely most successful, global pressure campaign in recent memory. The enemy was the minority white elites who conceived, implemented and perpetuated apartheid, the incomprehensibly malevolent scheme of legally sanctioned racial separation. These racists got their just desserts when company after company, government after government, and individual after individual pulled their resources. Eventually, the South African economy strained, leaders were toppled and the country began its long march toward moral reclamation.

Except for one problem: Black South Africans, the very souls who were supposedly rescued by the international effort, also suffered. When industries fell, Blacks people were the first to lose their jobs. When the economy teetered, money for education, health care, public services and the like diminished. Even today, almost 40 years after Little Steven refused to_{play Sun City}_ ” Black South Africans are still trying to catch up.

Many of my generation, me included, participated in the boycotts. I would do so again; apartheid was that deplorable. But now I go into any international development conversation with my eyes wide open. And that is what troubles me about Max Primorac’s discussion of international development assistance in “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” (aka Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration). His conservative ideas, if realized, will cost local jobs, much-needed public services and, yes, even real lives.

There are two basic problems with Project 2025’s plan for future foreign aid:

  1. It will result in a significant decrease in assistance to global south countries (especially if the spigot is turned down overnight), will have a devastating impact on the fragile economies of these regions, peoples’ overall health and well-being, and, in the most resource-scarce parts of the world, the very lives of the vulnerable.
  1. The qualification that aid is contingent on some sort of commitment to American conservative values — anti-abortion, a single conception of family, Christian-based religiosity, rejection of gender identity and so on — will have precisely the opposite effect from what Primorac and his Republican colleagues intend.

Let’s consider each in turn.

First, Project 2025 aims to reduce America’s investment abroad. Primorac refers to it as “streamlining” but it basically amounts to a neo-isolationist approach designed to whittle down budget of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “The next conservative Administration,” he writes, “should scale back USAID’s global footprint by, at a minimum, returning to the agency’s 2019 pre-COVID budget level.”

There is so much waste out there, Primorac says, that a Trump administration can refund billions of dollars to the American taxpayer just by holding non-governmental organizations accountable. The Trump administration can further reduce the USAID budget, Primorac continues, by making conservative cultural values a condition for sponsorship. The implication is that not all assistance programs will abide by right wing musts, and thus dollars will stay home.

That’s reasonable … in theory. Sure, we can all agree that reducing waste and stamping out corruption are good things. But understanding where the waste resides and the corruption plagues are not always apparent, and, in the meantime, the heavy burden of diminished aid rests squarely on local personnel whose employment options are already limited.

Don’t misunderstand me: I am notadvocating for continued waste and corruption. What I am advocating for is the local nurse in Burkina Faso whose job it is to administer vaccines as part of the Gavi program, or the Turkmen engineer who is a critical partner in USAID’s Regional Water and Vulnerable Environment Project, or the thousands of native aid workers in the roughly 75 _{humanitarian emergency }_areas USAID supports each year. These people inevitably become the casualties of a decreased foreign aid budget. They just do.

Trouble also brews when the U.S. government puts too many conditions on foreign assistance. Primorac talks of the need to “deradicalize” USAID’s programs and structures, by which he means eliminate the Biden era measures intended to expand reproductive rights and improve women’s health, combat climate change, acknowledge different identities and foster democracy.

Ironically, though, the author insists on replacing the radical liberal agenda with an equally sweeping conservative one. Primorac encourages a future Trump administration to withhold aid to any government or non-government actor who “promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systemic racism.” Gone then are all DEI initiatives, conceptions of family other the traditional nuclear one, support for religions that snub the New Testament, prescriptions for a healthier planet and, yes, even possibly life-saving vaccines (against measles, TB, meningitis, yellow fever, COVID-19, HIV, diphtheria, hepatitis, etc.). Vaccines, after all, are a favorite conservative scapegoat.

Enter China. Primorac is adamant that “countering China’s development challenge” is a top Trump priority. China has spent tens of billions of dollars on global south development projects in the last five years alone. They won’t stop. In fact, the People’s Republic will likely invest more heavily in Latin America, Africa and Asia over the next decade. Which leads us to ask: Which government does Primorac think will step in when the United States refuses to sponsor green energy initiatives on these continents? Which regime will pounce in Muslim-majority regions when America launches its conservative crusade? Which global power does he imagine will fill the void when the significantly reduced USAID budget forces program closures? I think the answer is pretty obvious.

In the end, a segment of the American population on both the left and the right regularly complains that we can’t do everything around the world, that our resources are finite and our altruism underappreciated. True. But the answer is not to retreat; it’s not to hibernate. Primorac is correct: We should remain vigilant and ruthless about waste and corruption. But we should also maintain and even slightly increase current funding levels. And we should certainly sheath righteous moralism. Indeed, in moments like these it helps to recall the plight of our Black South African brethren.

More articles aboutProject 2025

---

LI 6 26

max-primorac-21503712

experience

The Heritage Foundation Full-time · 4 yrs 4 mos

Washington, DC · On-site](https://www.linkedin.com/company/14681/)

Washington, DC](https://www.linkedin.com/company/14681/)

Washington DC-Baltimore Area](https://www.linkedin.com/company/14681/)

Addressing international economic issues, especially the negative impact on developing countries due to coercive green energy policies and China's debt trap diplomacy, failures and politicization of foreign aid, global crisis responses, and international religious freedom.… more

---

USAID 3 yrs

Nov 2020 - Jan 2021 · 3 mos

Washington DC-Baltimore Area](https://www.linkedin.com/company/5044/)

Role of Deputy Administrator to oversee administrative, management, operational, and human resource functions; represented Agency at the President's Management Council, US Department of State's Enterprise Executive Board, and Millennium Challenge Corporation. Chaired Agency's Senior Executive Council for Partner Vetting, Clear Choice Executive Council to counter China, and created Agency's first Victim's Advocate for overseas staff. TS/SCI clearance.… more

Jun 2020 - Nov 2020 · 6 mos

Washington, DC](https://www.linkedin.com/company/5044/)

Launched USAID's largest Bureau. BHA is the US Government lead for international disaster responses, monitors, mitigates and responds to global hazards and humanitarian needs, and provides life-saving support to millions suffering from protracted conflict through a $7+ billion budget and 700+ staff. BHA executed a $585 million international COVID response. SCI security clearance.… more

Jan 2020 - Jun 2020 · 6 mos

Washington, District of Columbia, United States](https://www.linkedin.com/company/5044/)

Jul 2018 - Dec 2019 · 1 yr 6 mos

Erbil, Iraq](https://www.linkedin.com/company/5044/)

The USAID Administrator's Special Representative and Envoy of the Vice-President of the United States to oversee all elements of the President's $400 million genocide recovery program in Iraq to support victimized Christians, Yezidis and other persecuted religious minorities.… more

Washington, DC](https://www.linkedin.com/company/5044/)

---

President

Institute for Stabilization and Transition

Nov 2013 - Jan 2018 · 4 yrs 3 mos

Washington, DC

IST was a Washington, DC-based nonprofit treating global conflict, terrorism and failed states that boasts a team of senior civilian and military leaders expert in designing and executing effective strategies, policies and programs for stabilization operations, post-conflict reconstruction, foreign assistance, democracy transition, intervention modalities and good governance.… more

---

Managing Director/International Consultant

Between Two Rivers LLC

2012 - Jan 2018 · 6 yrs 1 mo

Washington, DC

---

[Consultant Deloitte Consulting

2009 - 2011 · 2 yrs

Kabul, Afghanistan](https://www.linkedin.com/company/1038/)

Senior Consultant to the Government of Afghanistan on strategic planning, policies and programs to strengthen subnational administration through a $230 million US Agency for International Development program. … more

---

Show all

Education

University of Chicago Master of Arts (M.A.), International Relations

---

Franklin & Marshall College Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Liberal Arts

Projects

Transatlantic Relations in the Trump Era, Malta

Mar 2017 – Present

Associated with Institute for Stabilization and Transition

Part of small US foreign policy and national security team for two days of discussion with European leaders about strengthening US-European relations in the political, economic and security realms, on the sidelines of the European Peoples' Party 24th Congress in Malta 27-30 March, sponsored by the Martens Centre for European Studies, International Republican Institute, and Hudson Institute.

Save Our States

Defending the Electoral College since 2009

Think Tanks

Oklahoma City, OK

268 followers

2-10 employees

Save Our States is the one group dedicated to defending the Electoral College from the dangerous National Popular Vote campaign, which would nullify the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment.

---

scrape

More profiles for you

E. J. Antoni III

· 3rd

Chief Economist

Follow

Bill Steiger

· 3rd

Chief Executive Officer, Malaria No More

Follow

Pete M.

· 3rd

Chief Executive Officer @ USADF | U.S. African Development Foundation

Message

Kevin D. Roberts

· 3rd

President of The Heritage Foundation

Follow

Tim Meisburger

· 3rd

Author

Message

Nile Gardiner

· 3rd

Director, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at Heritage Foundation

Message

Victoria Coates

· 3rd

Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation..

Message

James Carafano

· 3rd

Private Citizen

Follow

Brent Sadler

· 3rd

Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation | National Security

Follow

Vladislav Pogarcic

· 3rd+

Principal and Senior Consultant at IAB & ACC & CFEF

Message

Bryan Burack

· 3rd

Policy Director, Select Committee on China

Connect

Daniel Cochrane

· 3rd

Data & AI Policy @Family First Tech

Message

Simon Hankinson

· 3rd

Senior Research Fellow, Center for Border Security and Immigration

Message

Alex Cranberg

· 3rd

Chairman, Aspect Holdings, Former Regent University of Texas System, Founder ACE Scholarships

Message

Robert Greenway

· 3rd

Senior Vice President, AGS

Message

Ned R.

· 3rd

Diplomacy, Development, and Economic Security

Follow

Wilson Beaver

· 3rd

Senior Policy Advisor at the Heritage Foundation

Message

Paul McCarthy

· 3rd

Senior Research Fellow, European Affairs, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation

Message

Bridgett Wagner

· 3rd

Executive Director, Edwin J. Feulner Institute at The Heritage Foundation

Message

Kyle Bonnell

· 3rd

Assistant Director, Job Bank and Talent Placement at The Heritage Foundation

Message

---

---

---

pal mesiburger fired for jan 6 bs, anticipated DEI attack by doge:

bs
Foreign-Aid Group Faces Reckoning over Support for DEI Ideology

Jun 19, 2024

Media

Foreign-Aid Group Faces Reckoning over Support for DEI Ideology

National Review

Jimmy Quinn | June 19, 2024

After using divisive rhetoric about ‘whiteness,’ a powerful NGO faces a possible funding ban from Congress.

A House committee voted last week to block all U.S. government funding for a prominent foreign-aid organization that pushed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology and other left-wing talking points on race.

Long a fixture of the foreign-aid scene, the group, InterAction, convenes other powerhouses in the industry and argues on their behalf before government offices. Among its members are well-known aid groups, such as Save the Children, OxFam, and Habitat for Humanity.

Now its efforts to push a DEI-centered approach to race into foreign-aid work is posing a liability amid growing complaints that it is politicizing U.S. foreign-assistance programs. An amendment to the State Department and foreign-operations budget passed on June 12 by the House appropriations committee explicitly prohibits any of those funds from being diverted to InterAction, which has long received contracts from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“American taxpayer dollars should not fund advocacy groups that politicize humanitarian aid. InterAction has demonstrated a clear pattern of using its influence to prioritize its own agenda over the needs of those it claims to help,” Representative Michael Cloud told National Review. Cloud was the author of the provision, which was also supported by the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of House Republicans.

“This organization operates within an ‘aid industrial complex’ that encourages a pay-to-play system, diverting much-needed resources from the needy to instead serve as a vehicle for implementing their radical social policies or propping up oppressive regimes.”

In an interview Tuesday, InterAction president Tom Hart suggested that the NGO is pivoting away from that DEI focus and trying to rebuild bridges with Republicans alarmed with the DEI push.

“Obviously, we were surprised and disappointed about the amendment,” he told National Review, emphasizing that he joined InterAction six months ago and is relatively new. “This organization is going through a new strategic planning exercise where we want to focus and we want to be more bipartisan.” He added that he spent 25 years at Bono’s ONE Campaign public-health initiative, “building bridges between right and left — successfully, I might add.”

InterAction also receives about $2.5 million in U.S. government contracts to carry out foreign-aid work and educational programs every year, Hart said.

InterAction’s work on infusing DEI principles into foreign-aid work drew attention from conservatives last year, after a Heritage Foundation report, by Tim Meisburger, a former USAID official in the Trump administration, highlighted its support of DEI ideology in foreign-aid work.

Meisberger cited a 2022 InterAction memo, “The DEI Compact: INGO Commitments Toward Greater Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” as a reason for concern. The Heritage report accused InterAction of using “typical Marxist language,” citing its invocation of concepts such as oppression, privilege, and “power structures of society.” “The DEI Compact” has since been taken down from InterAction’s website.

The Heritage report flagged another InterAction memo titled “Anti-Blackness & Racism,” which urges workers in the foreign-aid industry to confront racism. The report uses language common in left-wing activist circles, accusing aid workers of approaching their work with a “problematic white gaze.”

“Through this lens, the sector often places people of color, especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous people, against a model of whiteness — specifically, a whiteness rooted in the Global North — as the default or highest standard to strive toward,” it reads.

“Anti-Blackness & Racism” remains accessible on InterAction’s website, but Hart distanced himself from it, saying that the task force that produced it operated under prior administrations and is currently defunct. The program that published the paper on “whiteness” had ended before he arrived at InterAction, he added, but he was not sure whether it ended before or after Heritage issued its report.

“They’re trying to steer American taxpayer dollars to promote DEI, a woke climate agenda, and radical left wing foreign policy views,” Representative Kevin Hern, the chairman of the RSC, said in a statement. “Humanitarian aid should not be politicized, but that’s exactly what this organization is doing. We should not fund InterAction.”

In addition to InterAction’s advocacy for DEI, Republican congressional offices were troubled that the group lobbied against legislation that would block the U.S. from normalizing diplomatic ties with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and that would place sanctions on the Wagner Group. Hart said that he was not familiar with those efforts, which took place before he started at InterAction, and that it was his predecessor who had signed the letter protesting the Assad bill.

Hart said that he wants to rebuild his organization’s ties to conservatives. “There are a lot of disagreements between or among some conservatives and what InterAction has done in the past. . . . This is a moment for us to find common ground to move forward together to tackle the challenges that the world is presenting some of the most vulnerable people,” he said, adding that U.S. leadership on foreign assistance could boost America’s ability to compete with China.

It’s unlikely that Representative Cloud’s provision will survive through passage on the House floor, then consideration in the Senate, under the control of a Democratic majority.

Still, it may be a sign of where the winds are blowing for an industry that has unapologetically embraced left-wing talking points. InterAction’s embrace of DEI rhetoric reflects long-running trends in the foreign-aid realm, said Max Primorac, a former USAID official in the Trump administration and now a senior research fellow at Heritage.

“It is the first time that this industry — and, effectively, this is the foreign-aid-industrial-complex industry — is held accountable for its wacky and extremist social agenda that’s pushing through DEI.” Primorac said. He added that those efforts and the industry’s focus on abortion and “other things that have no place in foreign aid” don’t represent mainstream America and are “resented by those communities that we’re trying to help.”

---

Tim M

---


GGL 6 26

ISLAMOPHOBE?

[### THE USAID BETRAYAL Testimony Before Foreign Affairs ...

Congress.gov

https://www.congress.gov › house › witnesses › H...](https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/117889/witnesses/HHRG-119-FA00-Wstate-PrimoracM-20250213.pdf)

PDF

Feb 13, 2025 — My name is Max Primorac. I am a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. I previously served at the U.S. Agency for International ...Read more

3 pages

[### Max Primorac - International Affairs Professional

LinkedIn · Max Primorac

1K+ followers](https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-primorac-21503712)

Washington DC-Baltimore Area · Senior Research Fellow at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom · The Heritage Foundation

Acting Chief Operating Officer, Senior Agency Vetting Official, Regulatory Reform Officer. USAID. Nov 2020 - Jan 2021 3 months. Washington DC-Baltimore Area.Read more

[### Biography: Max Primorac

Congress.gov

https://www.congress.gov › house › witnesses › H...](https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/117950/witnesses/HHRG-119-GO16-Bio-PrimoracM-20250226.pdf)

PDF

Prior to USAID, Max was a business consultant in the energy, telecom, construction, security, and infrastructure sectors. At Deloitte Consulting LLP, he ...Read more

1 page

[### Max Primorac

The Heritage Foundation

https://www.heritage.org › staff › max-primorac](https://www.heritage.org/staff/max-primorac)

Max is a Senior Research Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation. Request an Interview ...Read more

[### Max Primorac

maxprimorac.com

https://maxprimorac.com](https://maxprimorac.com/)

As USAID's 1st Assistant to the Administrator, Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs. Joined the Board of CODESPA. As USAID's COO, fireside chat with Rohingya ...Read more

[### Working Lunch with Max Primorac from Heritage Foundation

New Frontier Foundation

https://newfrontier-foundation.org › working-lunch-wit...](https://newfrontier-foundation.org/working-lunch-with-max-primorac-from-heritage-foundation/)

Jul 7, 2025 — He previously held top roles at USAID, including Acting Deputy Administrator and special envoy to Iraq under Vice President Mike Pence ...Read more

[### The USAID Betrayal - House Foreign Affairs Committee House.gov

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov › hearings › the-usaid-bet...](http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/the-usaid-betrayal)

Feb 13, 2025 — The Honorable Ted Yoho Former U.S. Representative Florida's 3rd Congressional District. Max Primorac Former Acting Chief Operating OfficerRead more

[### Max Primorac

C-SPAN

https://www.c-span.org › person › max-primorac](https://www.c-span.org/person/max-primorac/143551/)

Max Primorac is a Senior Research Fellow for the Heritage Foundation with four videos in the C-SPAN Video Library; the first appearance was a 2025 House ...Read more

[### Weeks before joining the administration, Max Primorac ...

Facebook · ProPublica

130+ reactions · 6 years ago](https://www.facebook.com/propublica/posts/new-weeks-before-joining-the-administration-max-primorac-a-usaid-appointee-and-a/10158475861689445/)

Max Primorac, a USAID appointee and adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, pushed the business interests of a client to an organization funded by USAID.Read more

[### Pence's “Special Envoy” in Foreign Aid Office Sparked an ...

ProPublica

https://www.propublica.org › Archive](https://www.propublica.org/article/pences-special-envoy-in-foreign-aid-office-sparked-an-ethics-complaint-just-weeks-after-he-started-his-job)

May 13, 2020 — Max Primorac, a USAID appointee and adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, pushed the business interests of a client to an organization funded by USAID.Read more