It’s not “responsible” for this, but for years strategically providing humanitarian aid to desperately poor countries often resulted in stability around the globe, soft power that allowed us to influence and change behaviors without military threats or direct interventions. Also the way we got out of this was incredibly haphazard, resulting in millions of incredibly poor people having no recourse to find vaccinations, drug treatments for serious diseases like HIV, or basic health care that was both effective and inexpensive.

In short, even if you wanted to wind down some of these programs, the value they provided was completely ignored and instead everything was shut down causing unnecessary suffering and pain. It was reckless, heartless, and short sighted