Trump’s decision to shut down usaid could set off ripples around the world

Trump’s decision to shut down usaid could set off ripples around the world

The U.S. is by far the world’s largest source of foreign assistance, although several European countries allocate a much bigger share of their budgets to aid; the USAID funds projects in some 120 countries aimed at fighting epidemics, educating children, and supporting other areas of development.

The Trump administration’s decision to close the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has drawn widespread criticism from congressional Democrats and raised questions and concern about the influence billionaire ally Elon Musk wields over the federal government.

The United States is by far the world’s largest source of foreign assistance, although several European countries allocate a much bigger share of their budgets to aid. The USAID funds projects in some 120 countries aimed at fighting epidemics, educating children, providing clean water, and supporting other areas of development.

The USAID has been critical in providing humanitarian assistance in Colombia, conservation efforts in the Brazilian Amazon, and coca eradication in Peru. Recent USAID money has also supported emergency humanitarian aid to more than 2.8 million Venezuelans who fled economic crisis.

In 2024 alone, the agency transferred some $45 million to the U.N. World Food Programme, mostly to assist Venezuelans.

In Brazil, the USAID’s largest initiative is the Partnership for the Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity, which focuses on conservation and improving livelihoods for Indigenous peoples and other rainforest communities.

Over in Peru, part of the USAID’s $135 million funding in 2024 was dedicated to financing cocaine-production alternatives such as coffee and cacao. The humanitarian agency has been seeking to curb production of the drug since the early 1980s.

The effects of halting U.S. aid are also rippling across sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the U.S. gave the sub-Saharan region more than $6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance.

But since Mr. Trump’s announcement, HIV patients in Africa found locked doors at clinics funded by an acclaimed U.S. programme that helped rein in the global AIDS epidemic.

In Ghana, the Chemonics International development group said it’s pulling logistics for programmes in maternal and child health, malaria response, and HIV.

Education programmes have been halted in Mali, a conflict-battered West African nation where the USAID has become the country’s main humanitarian partner after others left following a 2021 coup.

In civil-war-torn Sudan, which is grappling with cholera, malaria, and measles, the aid freeze means 6,00,000 people will be at risk of catching and spreading those diseases, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.

In Kosovo, which has received more than $1 billion from the USAID since 1999, women’s groups fear the impact of losing American funding for gender and diversity-related projects in the conservative country.

“This might leave women’s groups stranded and unsupported,” said Ariana Qosaj Mustafa of the Kosovo Women’s Network.

Emina Bosnjak of the Sarajevo Open Center said the USAID promotes awareness of discrimination, violence, and hate speech, and marginalised groups would suffer if that stops.

“Stronger narratives that stand against human rights and stand against democracy and rule of law will actually become more visible,” she said.

A non-profit organisation supporting LGBTQ people in Uganda also feels under threat. Pius Kennedy, a programme officer with the Kampala-based nonprofit Africa Queer Network, said he and five other permanent employees had been ordered by the USAID to stop work.

He said the funding freeze could erase years of gains made in protecting sexual minorities in Uganda, one of more than 30 African countries where homosexuality is criminalised.

“We would always look at the United States as something that we would always run to in case you are facing a number of insecurities in the country,” Mr. Kennedy said — but that may no longer be the case.

The freeze of foreign assistance from the USAID include $39 million for rights, democracy, and media in Myanmar, whose military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, a human rights group said on Thursday.

The group Human Rights Myanmar said the frozen funds “are vital for organisations challenging military rule and promoting democracy, which advance U.S. interests by upholding American values and countering China’s authoritarian influence.”

The U.S. has also frozen funding for landmine removal in Cambodia.

Geopolitics of aid

In an illustration of the geopolitics of foreign aid, China has stepped in to fill the gap. Beijing and Washington vie for influence in Southeast Asia, with China gaining ground in the past decade. Heng Ratana, director-general of Cambodian Mines Action Center said China has released $4.4 million to support continuing demining operations in seven Cambodian provinces.

In the southern Mexican city of Villahermosa, the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter is one of several beneficiaries of U.S. humanitarian assistance to those fleeing persecution, crisis, or violence.

However, under the funding freeze, the charitable organisation that runs the shelter had to cut its only doctor as well as a social worker and child psychologist. The shelter has since appealed to the Mexican government for alternate funding for programmes managed by the United Nations to pay for flights and bus rides to Mexico’s border with Guatemala for migrants who want to return home.

“The crisis is only going to worsen,” the shelter said in a statement. “The most affected will be the population we serve.”

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