One of the bitterest ironies in American foreign policy in recent years was that the very voices who most loudly decried the evils of Western colonialism became its most aggressive modern practitioners—albeit in a new form. During the Biden administration, the United States increasingly weaponized foreign aid as a tool to promote progressive ideological agendas across the globe. This new form of coercion—ideological colonization—used financial dependency as leverage to push abortion access, radical gender ideology, LGBT normalization, and climate extremism onto the cultural landscapes of developing nations.
This was not old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy, but the ideological equivalent. And the stakes were no less profound. While military empires once sought to control lands and resources, the progressive empire of the Biden era sought to capture minds and remake societies in its own image. Wrapped in the rhetoric of “human rights” and “equity,” the Biden administration turned the United States into a vehicle for exporting progressive moral relativism—often against the will of recipient populations.
The Weaponization of Aid: Abortion in Africa
One of the clearest examples came from Sierra Leone. In 2023, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government foreign aid agency, signed an agreement to provide $480 million in aid. While this deal was officially tied to governance and anti-corruption measures, significant concerns arose that behind-the-scenes pressure was being exerted to influence Sierra Leone’s abortion laws. Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) publicly accused the Biden administration of leveraging this aid to push the country into adopting more permissive abortion laws. MCC denied any such influence, but as with many diplomatic dealings, the truth often lay in the subtlety of the unspoken. When hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake, the recipient nation understood what was expected.
Such suspicions were not without foundation. Upon taking office, President Biden rescinded the Mexico City Policy—an action that permitted U.S. foreign aid to flow freely to international organizations that performed or promoted abortion overseas. The administration also reversed America’s support for the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a multinational agreement that explicitly recognized that there was no international right to abortion. These policy shifts were not neutral—they signaled to the world that future U.S. financial support would be intertwined with a commitment to what progressive elites defined as “reproductive rights.”
LGBT Advocacy and Diplomatic Flags
Perhaps no symbol more powerfully conveyed America’s progressive turn than the flying of LGBT and “diversity” flags over U.S. embassies in foreign nations. In countries with deeply traditional cultures—many of which outlawed same-sex marriage or behavior—these acts were more than symbolic gestures. They functioned as ideological provocations. Rather than respecting national norms and cultural values, the Biden administration used American embassies as ideological beachheads, projecting its sexual and gender politics into places where those values were neither accepted nor welcomed.
In Uganda, tensions flared in 2023 and 2024 when the U.S. provided emergency funding to LGBTQ activists and human rights defenders in the wake of the country’s passage of its Anti-Homosexuality Act. While the administration framed this as a humanitarian response, critics in Africa and in the West viewed it as an attempt to subvert Uganda’s sovereignty and legal norms. Moreover, USAID funding for LGBTQ+ initiatives saw a dramatic increase—from $6 million in 2021 to $25 million by 2024. The agency funded projects in places like Bangladesh and Sub-Saharan Africa, many of which directly supported social activism aimed at transforming traditional sexual mores.
Again, the irony was sharp: in the name of tolerance and inclusion, the U.S. government aggressively intruded into the domestic affairs of culturally conservative nations. These acts were not examples of “neutral diplomacy,” but of moral pressure campaigns backed by the threat—explicit or implicit—of financial consequences.
Green Energy or Green Imperialism?
Climate policy offered another avenue through which the Biden administration projected its values abroad. By rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and hosting the 2021 Leaders Summit on Climate, the Biden team pledged billions in climate aid to developing nations, with the expectation that these countries phase out fossil fuels and adopt renewable energy. While this sounded altruistic, it revealed a condescending assumption: that the U.S., having developed its wealth on coal, oil, and natural gas, now had the moral right to dictate how developing nations should power their own industrial growth.
This form of “green imperialism” was not only hypocritical but economically cruel. For many poor nations, fossil fuels remained the cheapest and most reliable path to development. Conditioning aid on whether these countries conformed to unrealistic Western climate expectations was not environmental stewardship—it was economic sabotage disguised as virtue.
Unconfirmed but Believable: The Quiet Coercion
Some of the most insidious pressure campaigns were those that never made headlines. Aid agencies, NGOs, and diplomatic envoys didn’t always need to make overt threats. A well-placed conversation, a nod in a meeting, or a grant proposal laced with progressive language could carry all the force of an ultimatum. In many regions, local leaders understood that failure to play the game—by mouthing the right slogans on “gender equity” or promising LGBT protections—could mean the difference between receiving life-saving funds or watching them disappear.
Progressive diplomats didn’t always say outright, “Change your laws or lose our money.” But the machinery of ideological colonization didn’t require such bluntness. It worked through the soft tyranny of expectations, carefully crafted talking points, and funding conditions buried in bureaucratic language. In that sense, it was more pervasive—and in some ways more dangerous—than traditional colonialism. It wore a smile, not a sword, but the outcome was the same: external powers reshaping the moral and cultural foundations of sovereign nations.
Ideological Hypocrisy and Cultural Arrogance
Herein lay the staggering hypocrisy. Progressives in the Biden administration routinely denounced Western colonialism as a historical evil—an imposition of foreign values, laws, and economies upon indigenous peoples. And yet, they engaged in the very same behavior, albeit wrapped in rainbow flags and climate slogans. They demanded conformity to Western sexual ethics, environmental policies, and abortion rights as a prerequisite for development aid.
This was not diplomacy. It was cultural arrogance. It assumed that American values—specifically progressive values—were the highest standard of morality and that other nations must conform or suffer the consequences. It treated dissent not as a legitimate difference but as backwardness to be corrected. And it utterly disregarded the right of sovereign peoples to chart their own moral and political course.
Conclusion: A Cautionary Legacy
America should be a leader in foreign policy. But leadership does not mean coercion. It does not mean punishing nations for refusing to abandon their religious convictions or cultural traditions. A truly respectful foreign policy offers partnership without strings, assistance without ideological tests, and cooperation without cultural conquest.
The United States under President Biden veered far from that ideal. It exchanged military occupation for moral occupation. It replaced the cross of colonial missionaries with the pride flag of the sexual revolution. And in doing so, it betrayed both its founding principles and its diplomatic responsibilities.
If progressives truly abhorred colonization, they should have begun by repenting of their own ideological colonization. Let future administrations learn from this mistake and resist the temptation to use foreign aid as a battering ram for domestic ideology. Until then, the world would do well to recognize that the new imperialism wore a different face—but its ambitions remained hauntingly familiar.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
rob@christiannewsjunkie.com
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