The end of foreign aid as we know it

On Dec. 19, 2024, just weeks after the United States election, outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid a visit to the United Nations Security Council bearing a gift: $200 million in response to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Sudan, bringing the total U.S. contribution to more than $2.3 billion since the country descended into civil war last year. “The world cannot — must not — look away from the humanitarian catastrophe that is happening in Sudan on our watch, before our eyes,” Blinken told the 15-nation council at the time, in a statement that was removed this week from the State Department’s website. The U.S. offering may have been designed to pad global humanitarian accounts in anticipation of coming cuts by a Trump administration that sees foreign aid as handouts to the undeserving. But in hindsight, it appears to be more than that: A final goodwill gesture marking the end of a decades-long American era of serving as a global safety net for the world’s neediest. Take a quick scan across a horizon of human suffering — from the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine to West African pandemics, famines in Ethiopia and Sudan, and tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and droughts from Mexico to South East Asia — and you will find American contributions in the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. Sure, billions of U.S. foreign aid go toward underwriting missiles and drones from Israel to Ukraine. But U.S. development and humanitarian aid is hugely consequential. In 2023, U.S. official development assistance, or ODA, peaked at $65 billion, up from $35 billion in 2020, reflecting massive contributions to Ukraine to survive Russia’s military onslaught and maintaining the U.S. long-standing position as the world’s largest donor, according to figures compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD. Though measured by gross national income — reflecting a nation’s capacity to pay — the U.S. is not even among the top 20 donor nations, according to OECD. Still, the U.S. impact on foreign aid is undeniable, as it accounts for 28% of overall global overseas development assistance, and more than 35% to 40% of all humanitarian relief funding. The USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, or BHA, provided some $1.2 billion to help avert famine in Somalia in fiscal 2021 and 2022, accounting for 78% of international assistance. The following year — 2023 — the U.S. disbursed over $11 billion to Ukraine and more than $1 billion apiece to Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Jordan, and Somalia. Raiders of the lost aid Earlier this month, Elon Musk’s band of 20-something tech experts sought to stem the spending at USAID, part of a broader campaign by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to radically scale back U.S. federal funding. In a matter of days, they dismantled the agency, first placing its leadership on administrative leave and then barring the agency’s staff members’ access to the building. “We now recognize that when the U.S. reduces aid, the Chinese and the Russians are more than pleased to provide it.” --— Anonymous official By the weekend, USAID, the world’s most powerful champion of development assistance, was shuttered, sending shockwaves through a multi-billion industrial aid complex as USAID workers and contractors abroad were being sent home, newly jobless. On Sunday, Musk celebrated USAID’s demise, denigrating it without evidence as a “criminal organization” that needed to be eradicated. “Time for it to die,” he wrote on his social media app X, adding that he had secured President Donald Trump’s personal approval to take down the development agency. “We spent the weekend feeding U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper,” he boasted. The weekend assault on USAID was so swift, decisive, and destructive that experts fear it may be too late to save it, even if legal challenges prevail. ‘Plainly illegal’ Democratic lawmakers characterized the effort as “plainly illegal” and a flurry of legal challenges are heading toward the courts. But they face a complex legal landscape, including a Supreme Court that has shown deference to Trump, and a newly appointed U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia eager to back Musk’s assault on the federal bureaucracy. District Attorney Ed Martin, a Missouri Republican and Trump loyalist who helped organize the “Stop the Steal” movement to overturn the 2020 election, promised Musk he would “pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.” “The destruction of USAID, which is what is happening now, already has caused irreversible damage,” Nidhi Bouri, who served as deputy assistant administrator for global health during the Biden administration, said in a phone interview. “They’ve gutted the workforce, they’ve gutted so many systems and processes. You have essentially decimated the way the industry works, and are not putting back the tools that allow it to continue. It’s not as if you can just push play and resume it.” But the move also raised questions about the future of American leadership on humanitarian issues around the world. “The stated policy of the administration … is to get rid of USAID and the foreign assistance infrastructure. That would be a tectonic shift from how America relates to the world,” said Tom Hart, president and CEO of InterAction, the country’s leading alliance of international NGOs, noting that the U.S. is the “fastest and largest donor on the planet.” “It would cause irreparable harm to millions of lives around the world and be a huge shift away from decades of bipartisan support for foreign aid,” Hart said in a telephone interview. “That bipartisan support is built on the fact that not only does it do a tremendous amount of good around the world, it’s in America’s interest.” “When people aren’t desperate they’re less likely to migrate,” he added. “When people are healthier, viruses don’t spread. When the U.S. is present and partnering with people around the world it closes off space for malign actors.” Rubio’s betrayal The collapse of USAID up-staged Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first overseas trip, which included stops in El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Rubio announced that he had become the acting administrator of USAID and that he had assigned the job of managing its transition to a controversial political appointee and MAGA loyalist Pete Marocco, who had reportedly participated in the Jan. 6 protest that devolved into a violent assault on Congress. Marocco was never charged with any crime or accused of participating in violent acts. Rubio said he had misgivings about USAID dating back to his years in Congress, accusing it of being “a completely irresponsible agency. It's supposed to respond to policy directives of the State Department and it refuses to do so.” “I said very clearly during my confirmation hearing that every dollar we spend and every program we fund will be aligned with the national interest of the United States and USAID has a history of sort of ignoring that and deciding that they’re somehow a global charity separate from the national interest,” he added. For some Democratic lawmakers, Rubio’s defense of the administration’s bureaucratic coup was a betrayal. Less than a month ago, Democratic senators joined their Republican colleagues in toasting Rubio’s ascension to America’s top diplomatic job, praising him for his impressive command of foreign policy matters. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said: “You have the skills and are well qualified to serve as secretary of state.” In the end, Democrats and Republicans voted unanimously to confirm Rubio. But by Monday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, was having buyer’s remorse, telling reporters he harbors “some reservations about it given everything that’s happening.” ‘Nobody saw this coming’ But even Republican development experts were caught off guard. “Nobody saw this coming,” said one Republican who has participated in discussions with the Trump administration on development issues. For Rubio, the assault on USAID and the industrial aid complex marked a stunning reversal and a decisive embrace of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” brand. In the past, Rubio was one of the GOP’s strongest and most articulate defenders of foreign aid, arguing that foreign assistance has made America stronger, safer, and more prosperous at a relatively low cost. “There’s a perception out there that the United States government spends [an] extraordinary percentage of our overall budget on foreign aid,” he said in a 2017 address on the Senate floor, noting that foreign assistance amounts to less than 1% of the overall U.S. budget. Rubio recalled the role that U.S. foreign aid played in transforming America’s former enemies, Germany and Japan, into its strongest trading partners and allies. He added that 12 of America’s top 15 trade partners, including South Korea, were once recipients of U.S. aid. “People can’t be consumers if they’re starving,” he said. “We are helping people to emerge from poverty and ultimately become members of a global consumer class who buys American goods and services.” “Why does it have to be America?” he asked, saying that the withdrawal of the U.S. from the world stage will lead either to the advance of totalitarianism led by China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran or a gaping vacuum. “It has to be America because there’s no alternative.” But in an exchange with a USAID veteran at the U.S. embassy in Guatemala, according to a transcript of the encounter obtained by The New York Times, Rubio said he understands the agency’s work is “essential” to the conduct of U.S. foreign policy and that he has “spent a lot of time in my career defending it and explaining it. But it’s harder and harder to do across the board. It really is.” ‘I cut my staff by half’ At U.N. headquarters, the U.N.’s top humanitarian and development officials held an emergency meeting on Monday morning to assess the impact on its sprawling global operations. The U.S. suspension of foreign assistance — combined with a sweeping stop-work order on U.S.-funded programs — is having a “severe” or “moderate” impact on the budgets of nearly 20 U.N. agencies, according to a confidential U.N. survey that informed the high-level discussions. Trump’s 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance — decreed in a presidential executive order — had already weakened the U.N.’s ability to promote human rights, feed the needy, curb irregular migration, support ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, while threatening to fuel extremism in the Middle East. The stakes for the U.N. are potentially dire. In 2023, the U.S. oversized contributions to several U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, with 45%; the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, with 41%; the International Organization for Migration, or IOM, with 40%; and the World Food Programme, or WFP, with 34%, according to internal U.N. figures. As U.N. officials grappled with the fallout, Trump on Tuesday issued a new executive order calling for a review of U.S. participation and funding for the U.N. and other international organizations, a review of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, and ending U.S. participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council, which the administration claims is focused excessively on Israel. Trump also pledged to end funding for the U.N. Relief Works Agency for Palestine, or UNRWA, even though former President Joe Biden joined a Republican-led House and a Democrat-controlled Congress last year in ending UNRWA’s funding. ‘We’re taking away a little bit’ But Trump was noncommital about his broader plans for the U.N. “I’ve always felt that the U.N. has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to this potential right now,” Trump said on Tuesday. “Based on the potential we’ll continue to go along with it but they’ve got to get their act together.” “The U.N. is largely funded by us and it shouldn’t be,” Trump said. “We’re taking away a little bit but we’re not looking to take away money,” he added. Some U.N. watchers strained to find something positive about the president’s remarks, noting that he was not threatening to dismantle it like USAID. One U.N. expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it is premature to sign the death notice for foreign aid. It remains unclear, he said, whether USAID officials currently placed on leave will be permanently let go or reassigned to the State Department. Trump’s “budget cutters,” currently on the ascent, will likely be reined in as the administration fills key foreign policy positions and as important foreign recipients of aid press Trump to reconsider, the expert said. “The process could be messy and episodic,” he added. “They may at some point realize the error of their ways and find ways to sort of rebuild.” “We now recognize that when the U.S. reduces aid, the Chinese and the Russians are more than pleased to provide it.” It’s also unclear whether congressional Republicans who have traditionally favored foreign aid will resist. “Will they push back, and if so will they succeed?” he asked.“We don’t have the answer to that,” the expert said. “It’s still like this is chapter 7 in a long book.” Consultations or diktat In the meantime, Rubio has responded to the criticism of the dismantling of U.S. foreign aid by issuing waivers, including one that permits emergency food assistance and another aimed at restarting lifesaving humanitarian assistance. He assured Senate leaders that he would initiate consultations with Congress over the fate of USAID. But he made it clear that USAID would not be the same agency it was under previous presidents. “USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus, and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law,” he stated. Rubio said he had deputized Marocco to “begin the process of engaging in a review and potential reorganization of USAID’s activities to maximize efficiency and align operations with the national interest.” The waivers aren’t working InterAction’s Hart said he was “pleased to see the secretary broaden the exemption for lifesaving humanitarian assistance.” But the waivers, he added, are not working. “The problem is, and we’ve actually seen paperwork be communicated to resume work, that when those organizations go to try to draw down money, it is not accessible. The secretary’s intention is not being carried out. … Those disbursements are not coming.” Hart noted that the pause is so sweeping that it is also hurting initiatives launched during the Trump administration’s first term. He cited programs to promote women’s entrepreneurship, advance private sector investment in low-income countries, combat terrorists, and stop fentanyl from being smuggled across the border. Other experts say they anticipate a stark change in U.S. priorities, marking the erosion of humanitarian principles, that is the notion that aid should go to those most in need, not just those who support American political goals. “Things are likely to be more transactional and political,” said Daryl Grisgraber, the humanitarian policy lead for Oxfam. “They are going to lose a lot of their independence to make their own decisions on how they’re going to do their work, where funding is going to go,” she said. “Equally important, all the expertise in USAID, the technical and policy expertise are no longer going to have the same kind of voice.” The scale of U.S. donations is also likely to decline, she said, noting that the U.S. contributes somewhere around 40% of all funding for global humanitarian operations. “That’s a huge chunk,” she said. “If that’s not going to continue it’s going to be very hard for other donors to step in and provide that funding. … Mathematically, it can’t work out.” Washington’s ability to pressure other states into writing aid checks will be weakened, Grisgraber said. And you can’t count on major international organizations, like the United Nations, to fill the gap, she noted: “Guess who funds a lot of the U.N.” In the face of natural disasters, a greater burden will be placed on local first responders. “I have to assume that people are going to step up and do their best and that other major donors, and maybe not so major ones, will scramble [to respond to emergencies], but we’re not going to see the kind of preparedness and risk prevention that we’ve seen.” 1,200 maternal deaths On a purely human level, the freeze has sown panic in the wider aid community, as thousands of USAID workers and contractors contemplate a jobless future and the collapse of companies incapable of operating for three months. “I get reports from CEOs virtually every day saying ‘I cut half my staff, I furloughed two-thirds of my staff,” Hart said. The situation for aid recipients is far more dire. The U.N. Population Fund, which has shut down U.S. programs for women and girls in South Asia, has to lay off more than 1,700 female health workers, mostly midwives, in Afghanistan. Pio Smith, the U.N. fund’s regional director for Asia and the Pacific, estimates that the absence of U.S. support will result in 1,200 additional maternal deaths and 109,000 more unintended pregnancies between 2025 and 2028. “We hope that the United States government will maintain its position as a global leader in development and continue to work with UNFPA to alleviate the suffering of women and their families as a result of catastrophes that they didn’t cause.”