$229,000: USDA Hired a Brazilian Forest Policy and Gender Consultant. Brazil Already Has Its Own Forest Agency.

The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service hired a consultant in Brazil at a cost of $229,000 whose responsibilities included forest policy coordination and gender equity integration in forestry programs. The position was created as part of the Biden administration’s simultaneous pursuit of climate diplomacy and gender equity integration across all foreign programs. Forest conservation in Brazil has legitimate strategic rationale — the Amazon stores an estimated 150–200 billion metric tons of carbon, and deforestation contributes significantly to global emissions. However, Brazil has its own robust environmental ministry, the Amazon Fund (supported by $1.3 billion from Norway and hundreds of millions from Germany), and a sophisticated forest governance bureaucracy.

The “gender” component of the position — integrating gender equity considerations into Brazilian forest governance — is the element that DOGE found indefensible. Forest conservation (arguable national interest); gender equity consulting in Brazilian government programs (American ideological export with no strategic rationale). Both were in the same job description.