They are currently in the process of tearing down USAID, which provides money to other countries to help with things like disease eradication.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-usaid-c0c7799be0b2fa7c...

It is not the only thing they do. So, no. There are 0 signs of any care for Americans. And there were zero signs of any such care from either of the gentlemen, ever.

We don't have to pretend naivity.

Which sounds kind of useful, considering these diseases a) carry over to the USA, b) diminish the buying power of those the USA exports goods to, and c) helps these countries to improve their economies, leading to a bigger market for American products.

Does the Republican Party have any humans with brains left, or is it all slime molds now??

Emergency and humanitarian aid will remain. I’m sure all the political and cultural funding is gone though. For instance, Pepfar is still running.

https://www.state.gov/emergency-humanitarian-waiver-to-forei...

USAID mission is not about “aid”, is what finances overthrowing/influencing foreign governments: https://x.com/iammurphycolet/status/1886407439047614962

You could also call this "defending against anti-american expansion". Which seems like a thing foreign adversaries would love for the US to stop doing, if only they had a few folks on the inside to help them...

So now we are pro imperialism?

This stuff is also what breeds hate against US world wide. People are tired of foreign government mendling in their country.

Don't forget funding Sesame Street in Iraq to the tune of $20M

> What I give to Musk is that the staggering nepotism you see with Trump is not there as much.

Hiring a bunch of guys who work at companies he or Thiel owns definitely counts as nepotism.

The vast majority of Americans care about improving the lives of Americans. Trump and Musk are likely no exception.

They might care about other things more than that though...

The problem with that simplistic reasoning is that helping people in other countries also can help Americans, sometimes in ways they directly helping Americans can't do.

(I'm not saying that every dollar deployed by USAID succeeds in having a large impact on indirectly helping Americans. But the net effect is surely positive.)

A big example is that almost all plastic in the ocean comes from a couple of Asian countries. No amount of money spent in the US could stop that. But it would likely be very cheap to combine funding plastic recycling with threats of sanctions against those countries.