On February 26, 2025, the Trump administration announced extensive cuts to the US foreign aid program USAID. According to CNN, USAID manages 61% of US foreign aid, and 90% of that has now been cut. Up until this cut, USAID’s share of US foreign aid had been steadily increasing, from less than half in 2014 to 61% in 2023.
This is no longer the case, as 90% of USAID programs have been cut, numbering 5,800 awards.This is but one of the Trump administration’s attempts to cut out unnecessary spending in the federal government, a goal characterized by Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) that.
According to ABC, DOGE claims to have saved $65 billion as of February 26, 2025. However, only $9.6 billion of this is actually accounted for, which casts doubt on the true effectiveness of the program. The recent USAID cuts are similarly baffling, as foreign aid accounts for only 1.2% of US spending according to CNN (and USAID barely over half of that). Because of this, it is likely that the cut programs will have an outsized impact on other nations compared to the saved money’s impact at home.
A critical example of this can be seen in Kenya, where, according to the CBC, the USAID cuts have slashed funding for HIV treatment (Kenya is one of the most HIV-affected countries in the world, with 1.4 HIV-positive people living there). Considering that 29% of funding for these HIV programs comes from the US, the future of HIV treatment is now in peril.
One person concerned is Rex Taylor, co-founder and president of The Small Project, a registered Canadian charity that helps send kids to school in rural Kenya. In an interview with CBC, he said, “In my judgment, [USAID cuts] will mean people will die unnecessarily.”
Other programs affected include, according to CNN, humanitarian aid to Ukraine and many middle eastern countries such as Jordan, Afghanistan, and Syria. Ukraine aid is the biggest of these, with $16 billion of funding now in jeopardy. With the current Russian invasion of the country, the cutting of US humanitarian aid could have dire consequences as the war grinds on.
Overall, there is potential to save money for the US government by cutting USAID, but these savings are argued to be negligible compared to the massive impacts they will have on the most vulnerable abroad. Also, many of these cut programs (especially the Ukraine aid) greatly benefited US allies. Their removal casts doubt on the US’s commitment to protect and aid its allies, and the future of US foreign policy decisions in general.
