Trump Is Slashing Usaid. Here’s What It Means For The Future.

Elon Musk’s DOGE has ripped through huge swathes of the federal government, but no target has been hit like the U.S. Agency for International Development. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Musk and boasted that 83 percent of USAID programs had been canceled.

The political fallout of USAID’s dismantling is still unclear, but the practical consequences of freezing foreign aid and disrupting longstanding programs are starting to add up for the Trump administration.

So, what does it all mean — for America and the world? Here are some answers.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

1

What role does USAID play in global stability?

The U.S. Agency for International Development has managed more than $40 billion a year in foreign assistance and has programs in more than 120 countries. The money goes toward everything from helping refugees from places like Ukraine to promoting educational systems and good governance in various parts of the world. A huge amount of U.S. foreign assistance goes toward promoting global health, covering everything from mosquito nets to prevent malaria, to vaccinations against measles and polio, to trying to stop the rise of AIDS in African countries.

People who lose this funding are going to become more susceptible to starvation, to disease and possibly to extremist ideology. This is the type of thing where if you lose educational services and you have young people without a school to attend, then they're going to turn to activities that could fuel crime.

People are already literally dying because the U.S. has frozen its assistance. The State Department said it had issued waivers for what it called core life-saving material. This includes medicine and food and things like that, but it hasn’t defined this very well, and so there are a lot of organizations that don’t know what qualifies for these waivers. In addition, because most of USAID’s staff was put on leave and there have been technical issues with the payment system, getting waivers approved and money flowing has been close to impossible for many groups.

2

How does a weakened USAID affect the United States?

Much of the money the United States spends on foreign assistance actually is spent inside the United States. For instance, the government purchases a tremendous amount of grains and other types of foods from farmers, and it ships it over to feed hungry people overseas.

Because of this foreign aid freeze, those food stocks are just sitting there, not being used. And many farmers are not getting the money they were promised. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even billions over time. Many health care companies, such as Pfizer and Abbott, receive money from USAID to provide medicines and other materials that can go help people around the world. So when their contracts are not fulfilled, this hurts them and it could hurt the U.S. economy.

3

How could job cuts affect the aid network?

Many of the people who work directly for USAID carry out core functions. They’re the connectors. They’re the ones who can push the buttons to get the funding out the door. They’re the ones who are the managers who know how to write the contracts and who know how to check to see if the money is being spent properly. And now most of these people have been put on leave or have been fired.

It’s sort of like ripping out the heart of much of the aid network around the world. The USAID cuts affect other sectors as well. USAID works a great deal with private contractors. So, many organizations that work with USAID have had to lay off their people as well. There’s a reverberation, and ultimately at the end of the day, tens of thousands of jobs could get lost because of what’s happened.

4

How does USAID’s contributions compare to that of other countries?

Without U.S. assistance, other countries, international organizations, NGOs, they’re going to have to find other sources of money, or they’re going to have to find ways to network and coordinate without the U.S. there.

This is really hard because in a lot of ways, it’s like you have a body without a spine. Some of those countries might be in Europe, places like Norway are big aid funders as well. Many also believe that China could fill these gaps. And that is a concern for many U.S. foreign policy observers because they think that this would make China a more powerful force in the future.

5

What happens when the U.S. abandons its role as the leader in global aid?

The fear is that as U.S. assistance is withdrawn, areas that were stable could become increasingly unstable. Diseases that were held at bay could spread, and when natural disasters take place, we may find that there’s far fewer resources to help the people who are affected.

Overall, the challenge here is that if the U.S. leaves a vacuum and then tries to go back to fill it, it's going to have to do even more work than it did before. It’s very easy to destroy these networks. It takes a long time to rebuild them. And in that amount of time, lives are at stake.