I am a human rights activist and advocate for my country — Macedonia — and for its language and its culture.

As an American taxpayer, you have probably never heard of me. You might not know much about Macedonia or even be able to find it on a map.

But here’s one thing you have a right to know: Millions of your taxpayer dollars were spent to foment a political crisis in my country, to overthrow its government, and even to defame me personally.

When you read about Elon Musk putting the U.S. Agency for International Development “through the woodchipper,” you are likely to see a whole bunch of claims about starving children and cuts to lifesaving medical research. But the truth about what USAID does — or did — is quite another story. Your tax dollars were (and still are through other channels) being spent not on altruism or charity, but to start wars, sway elections, and cause tremendous suffering in other countries.

Both U.S. political parties have long been part of this racket, which involves the creation and funding of U.S. foreign policy organizations in other countries (mislabeled “civil society organizations”) and U.S.-controlled media outlets (mislabeled “independent media”). USAID has served as an essential source of funding for these instruments to brutally crush human rights and dissent while imposing U.S. foreign policy around the globe.

Since Trump shuttered USAID, Republicans have suddenly started pretending they never supported or profited from it. And as fully expected, Democrats are decrying the “heartless, evil Nazis” who cut off supposed aid to the supposedly needy. But both parties look the same from here. Most of them support of Israel’s total war of annihilation and destruction in Gaza. Most of them are willing to do anything to keep the war going between Russia and Ukraine, up to and including literally arming Nazis in the Donbas.

That should be enough on its own to show American taxpayers that their government’s foreign interventionism will not end just because USAID is gone.

The American demands of Macedonia that led to U.S. intervention there illustrate just how little respect Uncle Sam has always had for us. The U.S. wanted to force us to join NATO, but Greece was blocking the move. In exchange for letting the U.S. bring us in, Greece demanded an unbelievably degrading concession — that Macedonia first be made to change its name to “North Macedonia,” which represents a literal wiping out of our national identity, culture, and history.

In order to make this happen, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.S. State Department spent at least $45 million (it might have been considerably more) in Macedonia between 2012 and 2017. That may not sound like much, but it goes a long way in a country of just 2 million people. The effort, billed with such names as “democracy assistance,” was a campaign to remove one government and install another.

The accession of the Zoran Zaev regime in 2017 set in motion the forced name change (celebrated by U.S. media) that Washington had demanded. This came amid brutal suppression of dissent and mass human rights violations against Macedonians throughout the Balkans and the parts of Macedonia partitioned more than a century ago and given to Bulgaria, Greece and Albania.

As president of a Macedonian human rights organization, my advocacy against U.S. Macedonia policy also made me a personal target of the U.S. government. Former President Joe Biden signed an executive order banning me, and others, from entering the U.S.

Faux-independent media outlets in Macedonia, such as the USAID- and National Endowment for Democracy-funded 360 Degrees, aired or published false and defamatory hit pieces about me. Macedonia’s U.S. puppet regime also launched false attacks against me, including the foreign minister defaming me during a press conference and television interview.

The U.S. has spent more than $1 billion in Macedonia since its 1991 independence. U.S. taxpayers should wonder: If that much is spent on a country with a population smaller than Idaho’s, how much is their government spending to meddle worldwide?

Multiply the case of Macedonia by the number of countries in the world (many of them much larger), and you can begin to appreciate why so many of the world’s so-called “needy” are celebrating the cutoff of USAID funding.

You can also understand why the U.S. doesn’t have free healthcare, why poverty remains rampant, and why its infrastructure is crumbling. For generations, all the money has been spent elsewhere, wreaking havoc worldwide in order to achieve hegemony and give life and health to your country’s military-industrial complex.

Bill Nicholov is president of Macedonian Human Rights Movement International.