It has been 100 days since Donald Trump came to power — and set in motion a series of events that have paralyzed foreign aid.
It first came in the form of an executive order, one that paused all U.S. foreign assistance until a 90-day review was complete. Then, there was a stop-work order, one that halted programs in their tracks. Over the next few weeks, the administration turned to the U.S. Agency for International Development — and an aid agency that was once the world’s largest lost nearly all its programs, staff, and funding in just two months.
Projects were canceled, un-canceled, and re-canceled again. The foreign aid review was declared complete by mid-March, then switched back on in mid-April. And today, more than 80% of USAID’s programs have been terminated — leaving at least 36 million people without urgent humanitarian support, according to a recent analysis from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, or SIDA.
About the author
Elissa Miolene
Elissa Miolene reports on USAID and the U.S. government at Devex. She previously covered education at The San Jose Mercury News, and has written for outlets like The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washingtonian magazine, among others. Before shifting to journalism, Elissa led communications for humanitarian agencies in the United States, East Africa, and South Asia.
