VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES – FEBRUARY 21: In this photo the United States Agency for International … [+]
Project 2025 has gained attention recently as Democrats have latched onto it to try to draw policy contrasts between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. A look at the chapter on the U.S. Agency for International Development highlights the conservative disagreement with the climate change funding; environmental, social, and governance policies; and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts by the agency. Although not the official policy of the Trump campaign, it signals an end to funding of the Paris Agreement by the U.S. if Trump wins a second term.
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty adopted in 2015 to address the impacts of climate change. The agreement sets a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To reach that goal, a series of policies were adopted to address how governments and businesses reduce and report GHG emissions. It also focused on funding of both climate change initiatives and the economic impacts of climate change. The U.S signed the treaty in 2015. In 2020, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the treaty, only for President Biden to rejoin in 2021.
As international focus on climate change increased in the wake of the Paris Agreement, there was a simultaneous increase in pressure on businesses to be more accountable for their climate and environmental policies. This translated into a rise in ESG policies from governments and ESG/ sustainability reports by companies.
Around 2020, the production of ESG reports became standard practice by both publicly traded and privately held companies. However, there was no standardization of content. Companies could include what they wanted, from environmental policies to LGBTQ+ initiatives. This lack of standardization was problematic, especially as ESG was becoming a factor in financial reporting and investment strategy.
Regulators scrambled to create sustainability reporting standards. In March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed the development of a Climate-Related Reporting Rule. The final rule, adopted on March 6, 2024, required large publicly traded companies to disclose climate action, GHG emissions, and the financial impacts of severe weather events. The rule was initially set to go into effect in 2026, however implementation has been delayed due to legal challenges.
Simultaneously, fund managers were uncertain how to consider ESG factors in investment strategies. In 2022, the U.S Department of Labor issued a rule under Employee Retirement Income Security Act stating that fund managers can consider ESG as a tiebreaker. The DOL ERISA rule also allows for the consideration of ESG factors, if, and only if, they are going to make the investment more profitable.
ESG also became of part of U.S. foreign policy and, as a result, part of USAID’s focus. Under the Biden administration, USAID has actively engaged in the global promotion of ESG and corporate sustainability practices. Funding and contracts have been tied to ESG and DEI policies. Additionally, USAID has multiple initiatives to educate and strengthen ESG policies in foreign countries.
This use of USAID has drawn the ire of conservatives who disagree with ESG. It is therefore not surprising that it was addressed in Project 2025.
The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is organized by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank founded in 1973. When there is a change of presidential administration, the incoming president will establish a transition team to organize policy, review existing personnel, and fill vacant positions. It prepares the administration to being work on the day the president is sworn in. Project 2025 is attempting to preemptively influence that transition. To do that, Project 2025 is offering a policy agenda in the form of a book, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook. Project 2025 is not officially associated with the Trump Campaign and Trump has denied knowledge of its existence, although it is highly likely that the policy proposals will align with a second Trump presidency.
The Project 2025 book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, uses a format familiar to academic publications. The book carries a theme, but each chapter is authored by subject matter experts.
The chapter on the USAID was authored by Max Primorac, the former acting deputy administrator for USAID. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Heritage, with a focus on “global development, especially the adverse effects of China’s global expansion and climate policies, waste, fraud and abuse in U.S. foreign aid, complex global crises, and international religious freedom.”
Primorac’s chapter includes detailed recommendations relating to USAID, including its focus on climate change. His approach is best summarized when he stated, “the Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systemic racism.”
Primorac takes a direct shot at the rise of DEI policies, a key aspect of ESG. “DEI directives are now part of all agency policies and are incorporated as standard clauses in all contract and grant awards. Those seeking to do business with the agency must ‘describe the approaches they will use to diversify their partner base.’ USAID often ties DEI to ‘gender and climate equity,’ corrupting every aspect of the agency’s overseas work.”
Primorac’s solution: “The next conservative Administration should dismantle USAID’s DEI apparatus by eliminating the Chief Diversity Officer position along with the DEI advisers and committees; cancel the DEI scorecard and dashboard; remove DEI requirements from contract and grant tenders and awards; issue a directive to cease promotion of the DEI agenda, including the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda; and provide staff a confidential medium through which to adjudicate cases of political retaliation that agency or implementing staff suffered during the Biden Administration. It should eliminate funding for partners that promote discriminatory DEI practices and consider debarment in egregious cases.”
Primorac also focused on the climate change policies of USAID and the need to disassociate from the Paris Agreement. He states (in full):
“Upon taking office, President Biden issued executive orders to ‘put the climate crisis at the center of U.S. foreign policy and national security’ and mitigate ‘the devastating inequalities that intersect with gender, race, ethnicity, and economic security.’ USAID subsequently declared itself ‘a climate agency’ and redirected its private-sector engagement strategy—teaming with America’s corporate sector to wean countries off foreign aid through private investment and trade—to support the Administration’s global policy to ‘transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.’
“The Administration has incorporated its radical climate policy into every USAID initiative. It has joined or funded international partnerships dedicated to advancing the aims of the Paris Climate Agreement and has supported the idea of giving trillions of dollars more in aid transfers for ‘climate reparations.’
“The Biden Administration’s extreme climate policies have worsened global food insecurity and hunger. Its anti–fossil fuel agenda has led to a sharp spike in global energy prices. Inflation has hit the poor the hardest as they expend a higher proportion of income on food purchases. Farmers in poor countries can no longer afford to buy expensive natural gas–based fertilizers that are key to achieving high yields of food production. Under advice from climate radicals, the government of Sri Lanka even banned chemical fertilizers entirely without having any replacements in place. The result has been hunger and violent political instability.
“The aid industry claims that climate change causes poverty, which is false. Enduring conflict, government corruption, and bad economic policies are the main drivers of global poverty. USAID’s response to man-made food insecurity is to provide more billions of dollars in aid—a recipe that will keep scores of poor countries underdeveloped and dependent on foreign aid for years to come.
“The impact on Africa is especially acute. South Africa, for example, relies on coal-powered plants to generate 80 percent of its power needs. It would need $26 billion in foreign aid to make the full transition away from coal. Multiplying this amount by dozens of other countries on the continent, the financial resources needed to transition away from fossil fuels are unachievable. In Latin America, countries that are global leaders in oil and gas production have sharply curtailed their energy production in line with climate activists, upending the hemisphere’s major source of export revenues and condemning it to years of economic and political instability.
“USAID should cease its war on fossil fuels in the developing world and support the responsible management of oil and gas reserves as the quickest way to end wrenching poverty and the need for open-ended foreign aid. The next conservative Administration should rescind all climate policies from its foreign aid programs (specifically USAID’s Climate Strategy 2022–20307); shut down the agency’s offices, programs, and directives designed to advance the Paris Climate Agreement; and narrowly limit funding to traditional climate mitigation efforts. USAID resources are best deployed to strengthen the resilience of countries that are most vulnerable to climatic shifts. The agency should cease collaborating with and funding progressive foundations, corporations, international institutions, and NGOs that advocate on behalf of climate fanaticism.”
These proposals align with the policies of the Trump presidency, especially relating to ESG. It is highly likely that a second Trump term will follow a similar path.
One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.
Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.
In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.
Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:
User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:
So, how can you be a power user?
Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site’s Terms of Service.