Introduction

On 26 January 2025, United States (US) President Donald Trump signed an executive order^[1] suspending all foreign assistance being provided through the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). He maintained that much of this aid was misaligned with US foreign policy objectives and even harmed US interests in many cases. It was a move entirely in keeping with the image Trump has built for himself—that of the perennial outsider who is averse to the grand machinations of Washington’s Capitol Hill. The sweeping restrictions on USAID may result in the reduction of the organisation’s strength by 94 percent—from over 5,000 to 290—and a near-complete scaling back of its operations.^[2] The move draws the curtains on a long era during which the agency, alongside its humanitarian efforts, is also alleged to have both, functioned as a conduit for the conduct of covert influence operations overseas and also promoted leftist political agendas.^[3]

The ascent of Trump and the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has renewed interest on how US taxpayers’ money was being spent under previous administrations. This has cast a spotlight on the workings of organisations such as USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and their grantees like the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI)—exposing inconsistencies in their operations.^[4],[5] Long-held concerns that these organisations had been using public funds for political interference, both domestically and overseas, are being confirmed. Operating with minimal transparency, accountability, or oversight, these organisations are accused of furthering narrow political agendas in the guise of promoting democracy, through a network of civil society organisations, foundations, chambers of commerce, academia, media, artists, and human rights organisations. 

USAID

USAID was set up under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, which aimed to streamline US foreign aid programmes. Founded during the Cold War, its primary objective was to counter Soviet influence and prevent the spread of communism by supporting progressive development agendas overseas. While the organisation has made important contributions to humanitarian assistance over the years, especially in the areas of health, education, and disaster relief, it has also been mired in controversies.

Recent revelations paint an even more unflattering picture of USAID than previously believed. A factsheet^[6] published on the White House’s website accuses the agency of, among others, channelling funds to “a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations,” feeding “Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria,” and supporting “poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan.” New findings suggest that the agency has been used to advance what an analyst for The Heritage Foundation termed^[7] “woke” causes and to promote “cultural colonialism” overseas by imposing “alien values” in ways that not only contradict local traditions but also run counter to US national interests. The concern over billions of dollars being channelled to shady and sanctioned outfits without sufficient vetting was deemed so serious that on 23 January 2025, the agency’s internal watchdog Inspector General Paul K. Martin sent a scathing internal memo^[8]  to its Acting Administrator Jason Gray and its Chief of Staff Matt Hopson, highlighting these vulnerabilities.

Notably, USAID provided funding of US$270 million over a 15-year period^[9]—with another US$90 million in the pipeline—to the New York-based East-West Management Institute (EWMI),  allegedly to engineer political outcomes in several countries, including India and Bangladesh.^[10] Among EWMI’s partners is the US billionaire of Hungarian origin, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF). USAID has also been the largest donor to other Soros entities, such as the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.^[11] Soros and his son, Alexander, were the subject of a damning 2024 report by the Virginia-based media watchdog, Media Research Centre,^[12] based on nearly 8,000 pages of privileged communications between different Soros-backed prosecutors. The report exposed an elaborate scheme of resource use and influence peddling by the Soroses to advance far-left political agendas and manipulate the US judicial system. The documents detailed coordinated efforts to target and capture key legal positions, exert pressure to shift prosecutorial priorities, and implement policies aligned with Soros’s political ideology.

Some critics have also claimed that the 'Disinformation Primer'^[13]—analysing global disinformation efforts and suggesting ways to counter them—published by the USAID-sponsored Centre for Excellence in Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, in February 2021, served a secondary purpose: it outlined strategies to craft alternative narratives, limit dissent, and effectively shut down free speech.^[14] They maintain that the measures recommended in the document—such as steering audiences away from independent or alternative media, coordinating with tech companies and advertisers to suppress content, and framing such actions as necessary to combat fake news—could be repurposed to subvert democratic debate and control information flows.  Elon Musk, head of DOGE, summed up the political mood in Washington when he tweeted: “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.”^[15]

NED 

Philip Agee, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative and author of ‘Inside the Company: CIA Diary’, called the NED a “sidekick” of the CIA.^[16] The NED was established by former US President Ronald Reagan in 1983 to provide a veneer of legitimacy to the CIA’s secret funding of various groups following the 1967 Ramparts Magazine scandal.^[17] That exposé revealed the CIA’s manipulation of the international programme of the US National Students Association, as well as its covert funding of various foundations and overseas organisations. Following public outcry, then US President Lyndon Johnson banned all such funding. Subsequently, then Florida Rep. Dante Fascell advocated for a transparent system to fund foreign entities—encompassing government bodies, political groups, media outlets, and student organisations—with money from the CIA.^[18] This laid the groundwork for the eventual creation of NED, with then CIA Director William Casey as architect,^[19] as part of President Reagan’s ‘Project Democracy’.^[20]

Having consumed over US$1 billion between 2020 and 2023 alone,^[21] NED, with its mission of ‘Supporting Freedom Around The World’,^[22] has been criticised for its overseas political projects, and for supposedly undermining national sovereignty in countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and exacerbating social tensions there.^[23] A 2023 Washington Examiner report revealed^[24] that one of NED’s recipients was the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), which rates news sources and websites on a credibility scale to curb financial incentives for disinformation. Notably, some of the GDI’s lowest ratings were of predominantly conservative platforms, such as The New York Post and The American Conservative, which may have cost these outlets millions in lost advertising revenues and diminished their market impact. The funding stopped after the exposé.

Former US Congressman Ronald Paul has called NED “nothing more than a costly programme that takes US taxpayer funds to promote favoured politicians and political parties abroad. What the NED does in foreign countries… would be rightly illegal in the United States. The NED injects ‘soft money’ into domestic elections of foreign countries in favour of one party or the other. It is particularly Orwellian to call US manipulation of foreign elections ‘promoting democracy’. How would Americans feel if the Chinese arrived with millions of dollars to support certain candidates deemed friendly to China?”^[25]

Into the Maelstrom

Nowhere in South Asia has US intervention, if true, been more consequential or problematic than in Bangladesh. The country’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, who was overthrown on 5 August 2024, has accused Washington^[26] (read: USAID and NED)^[27]—of undermining her government through an extensive web of influence operations, allegedly in retaliation for her refusal to cede control of Saint Martin’s Island in the Bay of Bengal to the US which was planning to set up an airbase there to counter China. The US government has denied these allegations;^[28] meanwhile, Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy,^[29] a US resident, said the statement attributed to the former PM was fabricated.

Some years earlier, in 2017, Hasina claimed that when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State (2009-2013), her aides had threatened Joy, urging him to “wise up” his mother to call off the investigation she had launched into now Chief Advisor to Interim Government, Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank, or else Joy could be subject to an audit by the US’s Internal Revenue Service.^[30] Yunus has been a friend of the Clintons and was a donor to the Clinton Foundation.^[31] This raises the question of whether the nexus between Bangladesh’s current leadership and influential figures from the American establishment constitutes an additional layer to the motivations behind the regime change project.

Another motive of those in the US who chose to interfere in Bangladesh’s politics could have been their perception that India’s influence in Bangladesh—because of its strong ties with Hasina’s Awami League, which had been ruling the country since 2009—had become excessive.^[32] They believed it was this support which reinforced Hasina’s hold on power, rendering her government increasingly “authoritarian and corrupt”, and thereby “eroding” Bangladesh’s democratic framework. From their perspective, US involvement was a means to counterbalance India’s sway, diminishing the Awami League’s dominance and thereby creating greater political space for alternative voices—an essential element of democratic governance. The motivations behind the regime change project could situate in all or any within a conflated mixture: geopolitics, driven by strategic competition between the US and China; the desire to “restore democracy” by weakening what was seen as an “increasingly authoritarian regime propped up by India”; or even the response of vested interests linked to the nexus between the current Bangladesh interim leadership and influential circles in the US.

What remains indisputable is that the collapse of Hasina’s government has jeopardised a burgeoning South Asian economy and threatens to reverse decades of painstaking efforts to curb terrorism and radicalisation in the region. This is particularly concerning, given that some states in the region employ terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy and provide source codes for terrorist networks worldwide.^[33] The clampdown on USAID and its domino effect on organisations such as NED has brought out fresh skeletons from the closets of these quasi-official organisations, offering an unusual glimpse into their operations and their capacity to orchestrate regime change in distant lands.^[34]

In a video posted on X in February,^[35] Elon Musk shared an interview with former US official Mike Benz, who confirmed that dissatisfaction within the US State Department over the 2018 Bangladesh election outcome, which brought Hasina back to power, prompted officials to consult USAID and the NED-funded IRI on strategies to destabilise her government. Considering her party’s wide popular mandate, fomenting political unrest was seen as the only viable route to achieving regime change.

PAIRS and Beyond

This led to the creation of PAIRS, an IRI programme called ‘Promoting Accountability, Inclusivity and Resiliency Support Program, Bangladesh’—as per a purportedly leaked report^[36] published on the US news website The Grayzone in September 2024. The programme, which ran between March 2019 and December 2020, arguably set in motion a series of events that culminated in Hasina’s ouster. While the authenticity of the document remains unverified, it offers compelling insights, laying bare a byzantine scheme involving the training and funding of an assortment of players, from civil society groups and student activists to music artists and even members of the LGBTQI+ community, to raise public opinion against Hasina.

The document describes itself as a “programme report” which situates its “political context” in what it describes as “anti-democratic trends” and the shrinking “space for political dissent and criticism” in Bangladesh. It notes that the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party is unable “to successfully mobilize opposition”, while also acknowledging that it remains “still the most possible party to drive power shift in the future.” It emphasises its strategic focus on individual actors opposed to the government as well as on what it calls “specific marginalised communities” such as the Biharis,^[a] other ethnic minorities, and the LGBTQI+ community of the country. It claims that these minorities could be used to advance its agenda for change, maintaining that they are “harder to suppress and can often reach a wider audience with their democratic and reformational messages,” and that, considering their social status, they are less likely to attract adverse government attention. According to the report, preliminary work on the operation began with a baseline assessment conducted shortly after the 2018 elections. The initial phase comprised group and individual interviews with 304 “informants” across various districts of Bangladesh and the identifying of “170 democratic activists who would cooperate with IRI to destabilize Bangladesh’s politics.”

The report also details the cultural and grassroots initiatives undertaken after the baseline assessment to shape public opinion and stimulate dissent. One of the most notable components of the project was providing targeted financial support and capacity building to local musicians and artists, especially contemporary art forms that resonated with the younger generation. Capacity-building workshops were also held for the artists, including one that brought them together to brainstorm how they could collaborate to use “socially conscious art campaigns to engage more people in political change.” These efforts led to field activities by these individuals and groups, including photo exhibitions, commissioned books, theatre performances, documentaries, and videos disseminated through social media.

For instance, the report states, lawyer and rapper, Towfique Ahmed was awarded advocacy grants for the production of two music videos,  Tui Parish^[37] (You Can!) and E Daay Kaar^[38] (Demand It!). Released on Facebook and YouTube, the former is a rallying cry for urban youth disillusioned with the government, including calls to street protests, while the latter shines a spotlight on social problems, such as poverty and denial of labour rights, all intended, according to the report, to “build up disappointment and…dissent to government”. (During the 2024 student protests against Hasina, Ahmed offered to provide legal assistance to protestors.^[39]) Further, as part of  efforts to engage the LGBTQI+ community in effecting political change, transgender dance troupes were also given grants to stage performances in urban centres, symbolising defiance. The report also mentions groups being brought together for a performance on national TV featuring what the report terms messages of “tolerance, civic right and reform procedures”.

As per the report, the IRI awarded a total of 11 advocacy grants to artists, musicians, performers, and organisations, leading to 225 art pieces being created which highlighted political and social issues. It provides precise figures of the efforts to woo the LGBTI+, Bihari, and other ‘ethnic communities’ too: 77 activists were trained, 326 citizens were engaged with to formulate 43 policy recommendations, which were then presented to 65 government officials. The activists were given advocacy training, as well as support in cohesively organising themselves, which were framed as efforts to broaden citizen participation. The programme could arguably be said to have provided the marginalised groups with both ideological and practical tools to challenge the government’s authority.

Other than PAIRS, there have been coterminous and subsequent programmes too. For example, there was another IRI project^[40] between February 2021 and September 2022, given a funding of US$900,000 from the NED, to “enhance marginalized voices, especially (of) youth and women, within political debate and decision making” and to “build the capacity of women political leaders, elected representatives, and political candidates to contest elections and assume leadership positions at the sub-national level.”

Franchise building by these agencies after the 2018 general elections also involved the training^[41] of student political participants to ostensibly infuse resilience into Bangladeshi student politics, holding of capacity-building programmes for a variety of civil society organisations^[42] as well as training tens of thousands of mainstream politicians to overcome what a USAID report described^[43] as the “absence of a healthy opposition (which) weakens the checks-and-balances needed for representative parliamentary democracy”. In support of such interventions, the IRI cited various ‘public opinion’ surveys^[44] which “confirmed” that there had been democratic backsliding in the country and public disaffection towards Hasina’s government was high. Against this backdrop, the ‘NDI/IRI Joint Technical Assessment Mission (TAM) – Bangladesh’ report^[45] of March 2024, on the situation before and after the 2024 general elections, merits a close reading. Its findings—which highlight political polarisation and state violence against opposition members, thereby suggesting a compromised electoral process—could arguably be interpreted as subtly signalling an impending regime change, the groundwork for which had been meticulously laid over the preceding years.

New Realities

A rapid escalation of events marked the final days of Sheikh Hasina’s government. The agitation against her, which evolved into a nationwide students’ movement, began with protests against job reservations in government services, by which 30 percent of all such jobs were reserved for children and grandchildren of those who took part in the country’s 1971 struggle for independence from Pakistan.^[46] The quota was felt to be discriminatory, and in July 2024, the country’s Supreme Court decreed that the quota should be reduced to 5 percent.^[47] This ought to have resolved the issue, but instead protests against Hasina only increased as the students were swiftly co-opted by the political opposition.^[48]

The architecture of the resistance in Bangladesh which led to Hasina’s downfall and hasty departure to India—the well-organised protests, the imagery and storytelling that shaped compelling anti-government social media narratives, and the sudden rise of a network of social media influencers opposed to her—points to careful planning and was arguably far too sophisticated to have been purely organic. The experience of Bangladesh drives home the changing nature of modern influence operations where a wide variety of seemingly benign methods can be effectively deployed to achieve political ends. As Allen Weinstein, former NED president had observed in a 1991 Washington Post interview:^[49] “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA. The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection.”

Implemented through seemingly well-meaning interventions, the gamut of influence operations has evolved into full-fledged franchise building. Civil society organisations, media and entertainment outlets, and grassroots agencies are concurrently utilised as well to propagate engineered narratives. Bangladesh is a cautionary tale on how power is being increasingly wielded through agenda-driven networks and narratives.

An Essential Reset

Between US fiscal years 2020 and 2024, Bangladesh received a total of US$2.29 billion in aid, of which US$1.73 billion came from USAID alone. Within days of the interim government in Bangladesh assuming office, USAID signed a US$200-million development agreement with it for what it described as support “in advancing development, strengthening governance, expanding trade and creating greater opportunities for the Bangladeshi people to build a brighter and more prosperous future.”^[50]

What needs to be called out here is the narrative of Western policymakers and experts who claim to be defending democracy with such interventions. They are neo-imperialistic, a throwback to colonial purposes where the ‘natives’ were perceived as needing civilising, and are steeped in hubris. Such helicopter attempts to influence and impose foreign values in the name of democracy, without factoring in complex local realities, disrupt the delicate socio-cultural balance that holds these societies together. In doing so, they encourage dangerous local elements waiting to take advantage of the power vacuums such interventions leave in their wake. They also obstruct the process of organic democratic evolution—the natural insulation a society develops based on the highs and lows that constitute its learning curve, necessary for evolving its own unique version of democracy and not somebody else’s. This is necessary for genuine democracy to take root and become resilient.

Foreign interventions only induce chaos and exacerbate divisions, which ripple far beyond political borders. The anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh during the protests and after the interim administration assumed office, and the consequent influx of Hindu refugees into India seeking a safe haven, is ample evidence of this. Arguably then, the intervention in Bangladesh was more about advancing narrow geopolitical agendas under the guise of promoting democracy, than any genuine attempt to empower local voices.

Moving beyond the shock and awe surrounding the clampdown on USAID—one of the world’s largest aid agencies—the effort to re-imagine its mandate and operations and infuse transparency across the spectrum, which also involves the NED, will build renewed trust in the US system and serve its foreign policy goals better. It is a testament to the resilience of the US system and its constitutional architecture that such a recalibration is even possible, and it should be lauded as such. Lesser actors might have continued to exploit the vast global political leverage that similar institutions of theirs might have afforded them.

This is all the more important as new and assertive powers are building institutions similar to USAID to foster global political influence networks and manipulate the world order in ways that correspond to their extractive and exploitative worldviews behind a veneer of aid and assistance. The danger they pose is real and palpable even as their ways are opaque and obscure.

Endnotes

^[a] The Biharis, originally from the Indian state of Bihar, number around 250,000-300,000 in a Bangladeshi population of around 170 million. They have been at odds with the majority Bengali population of the country ever since it was formed in 1971, as they supported the Pakistani army’s brutal repression of the majority community’s aspiration for independence. Most of them wanted to relocate in Pakistan after Bangladesh separated from it, but in 1978 Pakistan stopped allowing them in.

^[1] Tammy Bruce, “Implementing the President’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” U.S. Department of State, https://www.state.gov/implementing-the-presidents-executive-order-on-reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid/.

^[2] Abigail Williams, Vaughn Hillyard, and Zoë Richards, “USAID to Be Reduced to About 290 Foreign Service Officers and Civil Servants,” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/usaid-reduce-foreign-service-officers-trump-cuts-federal-government-rcna191122.

^[3] Editorial Board, “USAID Exposed as a Shadow Government Piggy Bank for Far-Left Causes,” Washington Times, February 5, 2025, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/feb/5/editorial-usaid-exposed-shadow-government-piggy-ba/.

^[4] Frank Langfitt, “Trump Funding Freeze Halts Decades of U.S. Democracy Work Around the World,” NPR, February 16, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/02/16/nx-s1-5297844/trump-musk-democracy-usaid-authoritarian-human-rights-funding-freeze.

^[5] Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, “DOGE’s Best First Target: The National Endowment for Democracy,” The American Conservative, November 29, 2024, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/doges-best-first-target-the-national-endowment-for-democracy/.

^[6] “At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep,” White House, February 3, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/02/at-usaid-waste-and-abuse-runs-deep/.

^[7] Mike Gonzalez, “The Unmasking of USAID,” The Heritage Foundation, February 10, 2025, https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-unmasking-usaid.

^[8] “Challenges to Accountability and Transparency Within USAID-Funded Programs,” USAID Office of Inspector General, January 23, 2025, https://oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/USAID%20Inspector%20General%20Memorandum%20Challenges%20to%20Accountability%20and%20Transparency%20Within%20USAID-Funded%20Programs.pdf.

^[9] Yasin Gungor, “US Granted $270M to Soros-Backed Institute Over 15 Years: Data,” Anadolu Agency, February 7, 2025, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-granted-270m-to-soros-backed-institute-over-15-years-data/3474978.

^[10] “George Soros Used USAID Grants to Destabilise India, Bangladesh, and Other Nations, Report Claims,” Financial Express, February 10, 2025, https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/trump-claims-george-soros-used-usaid-grants-to-destabilise-india-bangladesh-and-other-nations/3744424/.

^[11] Yasin Gungor, “US Granted $270M to Soros-Backed Institute Over 15 Years: Data,” Anadolu Agency, February 7, 2025, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-granted-270m-to-soros-backed-institute-over-15-years-data/3474978.

^[12] Tim Kilcullen, Joseph Vazquez, Tom Olohan, and Dan Schneider, “Law & Dis*Order: How the Soros Machine Directs and Controls Prosecutors Across America to Implement His Leftist Agenda,” MRC Special Report, https://cdn.mrc.org/static/pdfuploads/Soros+Report_FINAL_PAGES.pdf-1723215421233.pdf

^[13] “Disinformation Primer,” Centre of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, February 2021, https://www.ictworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/usaid-disinformation-primer.pdf.

^[14] Alan MacLeod, “USAID’s Disinformation Primer: Global Censorship in the Name of Democracy,” MintPress News, March 21, 2024, https://www.mintpressnews.com/usaid-disinformation-primer-global-censorship-name-of-democracy/287075/.

^[15] Elon Musk (@elonmusk), "USAID is a Criminal Organisation," X post, February 2, 2025, https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886102414194835755.

^[16] Joe Buban, “Philip Agee on the National Endowment for Democracy,” YouTube video, 9:54 min, January 10, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXFuB6QkeJY.

^[17] “1967 February 15: ‘Ramparts’ Magazine Exposes Secret CIA Funding of U.S. Student Group,” Today in Civil Liberties History, http://todayinclh.com/?event=ramparts-magazine-article-exposes-cia.

^[18] Buban, “Philip Agee on the National Endowment for Democracy”

^[19] Vlahos, “DOGE’s Best First Target: The National Endowment for Democracy”

^[20] William Michael Schmidli, “Reframing Human Rights: Reagan’s ‘Project Democracy’ and the US Intervention in Nicaragua,” in The Reagan Moment: America and the World in the 1980s, ed. Jonathan R. Hunt et al. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, December 2021), 237–259, https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501760686.003.0012.

^[21] Vlahos, “DOGE’s Best First Target: The National Endowment for Democracy”

^[22] National Endowment for Democracy, https://www.ned.org.

^[23] Vlahos, “DOGE’s Best First Target: The National Endowment for Democracy”

^[24] Vlahos, “DOGE’s Best First Target: The National Endowment for Democracy”

^[25] “National Endowment for Democracy,” Militarist Monitor, https://militarist-monitor.org/profile/national_endowment_for_democracy/#_edn2.

^[26] “Did US Plot Sheikh Hasina’s Ouster? What Bangladesh Ex-PM Said in Her Undelivered Speech,” The Week, August 11, 2024, https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2024/08/11/did-us-plot-sheikh-hasinas-ouster-what-bangladesh-ex-pm-said-in-her-undelivered-speech.html.

^[27] “How USAID Was Used for Regime Change in Bangladesh: Former US State Dept Official Mike Benz Reveals,” The Times of India, February 10, 2025, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/how-usaid-was-used-for-regime-change-in-bangladesh-former-us-state-dept-official-mike-benz-reveals/articleshow/118118878.cms.

^[28] “‘Laughable’: US Denies Involvement in Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina’s Resignation,” Hindustan Times, August 14, 2024, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/bangladesh-unrest-us-denies-involvement-in-prime-minister-sheikh-hasina-resignation-101723596150941.html.

^[29] Geeta Mohan, “Sheikh Hasina's Son Denies Her Resignation Statement Report: ‘False, Fabricated’,” India Today, August 11, 2024, https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/sheikh-hasina-big-charge-against-us-in-undelivered-speech-message-to-students-2580591-2024-08-11.

^[30] “Hillary Clinton’s Aides Threatened Me with Tax Audit: Sajeeb Wazed Joy,” BDNews24, April 27, 2017, https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/hillary-clintons-aides-threatened-me-with-tax-audit-sajeeb-wazed-joy.

^[31] Michael Sainato, “Hillary Clinton Lobbied Bangladesh PM on Behalf of Clinton Foundation Donor,” Observer, May 11, 2017, https://observer.com/2017/05/hillary-clinton-lobbied-bangladesh-prime-minister-clinton-foundation-donor/.

^[32] “Report Says U.S. Backed Regime Change Initiative in Bangladesh,” The Commune, September 17, 2024, https://thecommunemag.com/revealed-u-s-backed-regime-change-in-bangladesh/.

^[33] Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Why Pakistan Supports Terrorist Groups, and Why the US Finds it So Hard to Induce Change,” Brookings Institution, January 5, 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-pakistan-supports-terrorist-groups-and-why-the-us-finds-it-so-hard-to-induce-change/.

^[34] The Grayzone, “Inside America’s Meddling Machine: NED, the US-Funded Org Interfering in Elections Across the Globe,” YouTube video, 22:42 min, August 21, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzIJ25ob1aA.

^[35] Elon Musk (@elonmusk), X post, February 5, 2025, https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1887036439289897208.

^[36] The Grayzone, IRI Bangladesh Final Report, September 2024, https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/IRI-Bangladesh-Final-Report-1.pdf.

^[37] Towfique Ahmed, “Tui Parish,” YouTube video, 3:02 min, April 14, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLTB2feqNJo.

^[38] Towfique Ahmed, “E Daay Kaar,” YouTube video, 4:12 min, December 31, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE531d96tJE.

^[39] Arts & Entertainment Desk, "Rapper-barrister Towfique Ahmed Offers Legal Support to Quota Reform Protesters," The Daily Star, July 18, 2024, https://www.thedailystar.net/entertainment/music/news/rapper-barrister-towfique-ahmed-offers-legal-support-quota-reform-protesters-3659861.

^[40] Abhinandan Mishra, “Documents Show U.S. Set in Motion Plan to Oust Hasina,” The Sunday Guardian, September 15, 2024, https://sundayguardianlive.com/top-five/documents-show-u-s-set-in-motion-plan-to-oust-hasina.

^[41] International Republican Institute, Survey Research for Bangladesh 2023: Dissatisfaction with Country’s Direction, https://www.iri.org/news/survey-research-for-bangladesh-2023-dissatisfaction-with-countrys-direction/. As of March 7, 2025, the IRI website appears to be disabled.

^[42] Nurul Islam Hasib, “USAID: Bangladesh Cannot Afford to Leave Anyone Behind,” Dhaka Tribune, October 30, 2024, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/foreign-affairs/363599/usaid-bangladesh-cannot-afford-to-leave-anyone.

^[43] USAID, “Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance – Bangladesh,” https://2017-2020.usaid.gov/bangladesh/democracy-human-rights-and-governance. As of March 7, 2025, the USAID website appears to be disabled.

^[44] "Survey Research for Bangladesh 2023: Dissatisfaction with Country’s Direction"

^[45] International Republican Institute, “NDI-IRI Joint Technical Assessment Mission (TAM) Bangladesh,” https://www.iri.org/resources/ndi-iri-joint-technical-assessment-mission-tam-bangladesh/. As of March 7, 2025, the IRI website appears to be disabled.

^[46] Writ Petition No. 6063 of 2021, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, High Court Division, https://www.supremecourt.gov.bd/resources/documents/2110398_W.P.No.6063of2021.pdf.

^[47] Arnav Laroia, “Bangladesh Supreme Court Overturns Restoration of Quota System for Government Employment,” JURIST, July 21, 2024, https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/07/bangladesh-supreme-court-overturns-restoration-of-quota-system-for-government-employment/.

^[48] Parama Sigurdsen and Ravi Iyer, “A Double-Edged Sword: The Role of Social Media in the 2024 Political Uprising in Bangladesh,” Tech Policy Press, October 1, 2024, https://www.techpolicy.press/a-double-edged-sword-the-role-of-social-media-in-the-2024-political-uprising-in-bangladesh/.

^[49] David Ignatius, “Innocence Abroad: The New World of Spyless Coups,” Washington Post, September 21, 1991, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1991/09/22/innocence-abroad-the-new-world-of-spyless-coups/92bb989a-de6e-4bb8-99b9-462c76b59a16/.

^[50] Nurul Islam Hasib, "USAID: Bangladesh Cannot Afford to Leave Anyone Behind," Dhaka Tribune, October 30, 2024, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/foreign-affairs/363599/usaid-bangladesh-cannot-afford-to-leave-anyone.

• International Affairs
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• us role in hasina ouster
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• usaid bangladesh
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• usaid shutdown impact in bangladesh

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