Trump Administration Announces Massive USAID Cut.
Marco Rubio Announced On Social Media That 83% Of USAID Programs Have Been Cut.
After weeks of misleading or outright false claims from Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), it seems the Trump Administration has finally succeeded in cutting many of USAID’s programs.
As Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, took to X to announce:
After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.
The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.
In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department.
Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform.
USAID is an independent humanitarian organization that spends billions of dollars each year in a global effort to alleviate poverty, treat diseases and respond to famines and other natural disasters.
It also helps spread the message and importance of democracy by supporting non-government organizations and various social initiatives. It has helped pushed back Putin’s influence in Russia, and helped end apartheid in South Africa.
Trump’s administration had terminated nearly 5,800 USAID awards by late February. Those terminations included funding for programs that had been deemed lifesaving, from providing food to certain healthcare initiatives.
Multiple humanitarian officials have stated openly the terminations will have massive negative effects. Others said the way the administration is handling the terminations is confusing at best, even to the officials within those agencies.
Trump’s plan to withdraw this aid will also almost completely destroy the global climate finance from the developed world with particularly devastating impacts toward the more vulnerable nations.
America was responsible last year for around 8% of funding that flowed from the rich world to developing countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather.
About $11 billion was spent last year, with a similar amount planned for this year, meaning Trump’s cuts threaten around 10% global climate finance with USAID alone, this analysis found.
This falls in line with one of the first actions of the Trump Administration, which was to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement. Which also stands to destroy global climate financing.
USAID alone provides about a third of US climate finance, through contributions to the international Green Climate Fund and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
This funding seen globally through USAID provides massive downstream benefits to Americans. Two-thirds of our export growth the last 10 years has been from USAID recipient countries. This export growth helped us rebound from COVID-19.
Also, as these poorer countries become economically independent they can become countries who invest or become trade partners. This further widens our opportunity for economic growth if they are investing in or trading with our industries, rather than needing to rely on them to survive.
Another under-spoken benefit is in health. The travel risk for diseases that are eradicated from America, like measles, are still high because of its presence in poorer countries.
Funding better health infrastructure, vaccines, and overall medicine will reduce the prevalence of these diseases globally which then reduces the risk they travel to neighboring countries or eventually make their way to America.
This seems to be an agency Trump felt could become an easy target due to the lack of public knowledge about it, where the funding could then be directed toward his expensive $4.5 trillion tax cut plan he is desperately slashing funding to afford.