USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) was created in 1961 by John F. Kennedy not as a 'give-away' program but as a strategic instrument to compete with the Soviet Union's economic assistance program in the Third World during the Cold War, similar to the U.S. decision to go to the moon; it was broken and atrophied over time but should be reformed, not dismantled, because China is investing in similar soft power instruments.