The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid. President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 by executive order to implement development assistance programs in the areas authorized by the Congress in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The Congress updates this authorization through annual funds appropriation acts, and other legislation. Although technically an independent federal agency, USAID operates subject to the foreign policy guidance of the President, Secretary of State, and the National Security Council. USAID's Administrator works under the direct authority and foreign policy guidance of the Secretary of State.

USAID seeks to "extend a helping hand to those people overseas struggling to make a better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country." USAID's stated goals include providing "economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States". It operates in Sub-Saharan Africa; Asia and the Near East, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, and Eurasia.

Eva Golinger is a Venezuelan-American attorney and editor of the Correo del Orinoco International, a web- and print-based newspaper which is financed by the Venezuelan government. In a 2011 profile in the New York Times she was described as "one of the most prominent fixtures of Venezuela’s expanding state propaganda complex," and her newspaper as "Venezuela's equivalent of the Cuban newspaper Granma". "I'm a soldier for this revolution," she told the New York Times.

Golinger is the author of several books on Venezuela's relationship with the United States. She is an outspoken supporter of Venezuela's socialist president Hugo Chávez; As of May 2011 she serves as a foreign policy advisor to the Venezuelan government. Chávez has called her La novia de Venezuela ("The Girlfriend of Venezuela"). Golinger is a writer at Venezuelanalysis.com, and according to the National Catholic Reporter in 2004 was "head of the pro-Chávez Venezuela Solidarity Committee in New York". Her website, venezuelafoia.info, aims to shed light on what she calls links between U.S. government agencies and Venezuelan organizations by publishing documents obtained using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).