USAID helped fund Melania Trump’s Be Best program and Ivanka Trump’s Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative during the first Trump term.
And each woman traveled with the agency on separate trips to Africa, where they praised the investments it was making on the continent.
Ivanka Trump travelled with then-USAID administrator Mark Green to Africa in April 2019, where they met with women entrepreneurs in Ethiopia and rural cocoa farmers on the Ivory Coast.
USAID oversaw $265 million per year in spending Ivanka Trump’s women’s business initiative and an associated antipoverty program.
Melania Trump partnered with the agency on her 2018 trip to Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt.