Axios says her top priorities in the new post will be getting the U.S. back into the WHO and dealing with COVID-19 issues
President-elect Joseph Biden is considering the candidacy of former U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Samantha Power to head the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This was reported on Sunday by the news portal Axios, citing its own sources.
Such an appointment, if it takes place, indicates, according to the portal, the intention of the future Biden administration to intensify US overseas aid efforts and use this assistance as a soft power tool in the interests of the United States.
Axios believes that Power’s first priorities in her new post, if confirmed, will be to return the US to the World Health Organisation (WHO), from which the country officially withdrew in July 2020, and to address COVID-19 issues. “The [Donald] Trump administration’s response to the world’s most urgent problem today – the coronavirus pandemic – is the worst of the rest of the world,” Power wrote in Foreign Affairs. Samantha Power, 50, served as the US permanent representative to the UN from 2013 to 2017.
Established in 1961, the US Agency for International Development is the country’s top federal government agency for overseas aid. The head and deputy head of the agency are appointed by the president with the consent of the US Senate and act in coordination with the Department of State. According to the statute, the agency’s main activities include supporting trade, agriculture, health, humanitarian and economic development, as well as assisting conflict prevention and democracy-building efforts in other countries.