I don't believe Musk or Trum cares about "improving the lives of Americans". They would try to protect Americans if that was their goal. Their first targets are consumer protection, environmental protection and such.
they don't care about fraud either. Both are fraudsters themselves, both will enrich themselves and their families. They both surround themselves with fraudsters.
What I give to Musk is that the staggering nepotism you see with Trump is not there as much.
Which sounds kind of useful, considering these diseases a) carry over to the USA, b) diminish the buying power of those the USA exports goods to, and c) helps these countries to improve their economies, leading to a bigger market for American products.
Does the Republican Party have any humans with brains left, or is it all slime molds now??
You could also call this "defending against anti-american expansion". Which seems like a thing foreign adversaries would love for the US to stop doing, if only they had a few folks on the inside to help them...
The problem with that simplistic reasoning is that helping people in other countries also can help Americans, sometimes in ways they directly helping Americans can't do.
(I'm not saying that every dollar deployed by USAID succeeds in having a large impact on indirectly helping Americans. But the net effect is surely positive.)
A big example is that almost all plastic in the ocean comes from a couple of Asian countries. No amount of money spent in the US could stop that. But it would likely be very cheap to combine funding plastic recycling with threats of sanctions against those countries.
they don't care about fraud either. Both are fraudsters themselves, both will enrich themselves and their families. They both surround themselves with fraudsters.
What I give to Musk is that the staggering nepotism you see with Trump is not there as much.