USAID head testifies on COVAX, Cuba and Haiti

The USAID administrator told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday that Beijing's practice of making a profit from their vaccine distribution to needy countries instead of donating vaccines to COVAX is "appalling."

USAID Administrator Samantha Power during a hearing regarding the agencies budget request for fiscal year 2022 was grilled on a broad range of topics including COVAX distribution, the Cuban demonstrations and turmoil in Haiti.

While questioned on COVAX, referring to the U.N.-backed initiative to distribute vaccines globally said: "it's appalling that Beijing chose to make a profit on those vaccines rather than to contribute financially to COVAX or to donate its state-owned doses to COVAX to reach people in their hour of desperate need."

Both US based Pfizer and Moderna have agreed to supply small amounts of their vaccine to COVAX.

Powers also responded to questions regarding Cuba and Haiti. They are two tiny Caribbean states whose intractable problems have vexed U.S. presidents for decades.

Cuban demonstrators have taken to the country's streets in recent days to lash out at the communist government and protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In Haiti, officials are asking the U.S. to intercede in a roiling political crisis after last week's assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in a nation where military and humanitarian interventions by U.S. presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama have proved to be politically harrowing.

Power was questioned by Republican senator Ted Cruz from Texas on "what protesters in Cuba are seeking and what are the impediments to their getting it?"

"You only have to hear the cries on the street for freedom," Power said.

Adding, "I'm sure it's a heterogeneous set of motivations for different people, but people don't want to be repressed and they want to enjoy individual dignity. And the regime denies them that."