Since 1961, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has managed international projects that deal with food aid, disaster relief, and health and education programs in over 100 countries.

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For over six decades, support from the American people has vastly increased access to education and healthcare for millions; helped achieve significant reductions in child and maternal mortality; been instrumental in eradicating smallpox and reducing malaria deaths; helped secure democracy for vulnerable nations; and been responsible for sparking economic development in various regions throughout the world. We have provided critical assistance during natural disasters, famines, and other emergencies; prevented millions of new infections of HIV/AIDS; and provided access to clean drinking water for millions.

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On his first day back in office, Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14169, freezing all new foreign development assistance obligations and disbursements. Four days later, a stop-work order was issued for all existing foreign assistance awards; on February 2nd the USAID website was taken down; and five days later, signs identifying the headquarters of USAID were removed.

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Elon Musk’s DOGE quickly started to systematically dismantle the rest of USAID, shutting down most all its programming and laying off almost all its staff. This included people working in war zones, who found themselves abruptly cut off from their work emails and the app they relied on to help them in case of an emergency.​ Immediately after Elon, in his words, “fed USAID into the wood chipper,” at least 11,500 Americans and 54,575 foreigners lost their jobs; around $1 billion in payments for work that had already been completed had been frozen; and $500 million in food was sitting in ports, ships and warehouses.

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In testimony before Congress on May 21, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the gutting of USAID by the Trump administration had not caused any unnecessary deaths: “No children are dying on my watch… no one has died because of USAID.”​ This was a preposterous thing for him to say. Without question – directly because of Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Elon Musk’s heartless decisions – more babies have needlessly died of malnutrition, cholera and AIDS, and more women and young girls have fallen victim to violence, both physical and sexual. That’s just a fact.

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An “impact counter” tracking the human impact of funding changes for aid and support organizations – developed by infectious disease mathematical modeller and health economist Dr. Brooke Nichols – estimates that, within two months of the decimation of USAID, roughly 137,883 adults and 286,759 children had already died because of funding cuts. That translates into 88 deaths per hour.

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Worse, many of these 424,642 deaths could have been prevented with existing resources BUT, thanks to the haphazard and incompetent way the Trump administration dissolved USAID, over 60,000 metric tons of food (along with other commodities and nutritional supplements already paid for by the U.S. taxpayer) soon sat in warehouses in America and around the world rotting and expiring instead of being transported to crisis zones and famine-stricken countries. It’s estimated these supplies could have helped over 60 million people.

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More than $12 million worth of contraceptives and HIV-prevention medications purchased by the U.S. taxpayer – originally headed for 18 different countries – just sat in distribution centers in Belgium and the United Arab Emirates, going to waste.​According to excellent reporting by The Washington Post, “the cost of destroying $9.7 million of the family-planning commodities at the Belgium center would be approximately $167,000… the government calculates that the ‘net cost to USAID’ would be nearly $10 million, factoring in the cost of the supplies themselves.” Contraceptives and HIV-prevention medications worth over $9 million sat in warehouses in several other countries as well.

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Hundreds of thousands of doses of a lifesaving supplement called Plumpy’Nut sat in a warehouse in Rhode Island, its shipment to Sudan canceled after the stop-work order was issued. Meanwhile, at the Almanar food distribution center in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, mothers sat in line – waiting – with their starving children.

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Elsewhere in Africa – where 46 million people are forcibly displaced, including nine million refugees – the U.N. World Food Program was forced to end food distribution to one million refugees in Uganda’s Kiryandongo refugee settlement, a place that cares for people forced to flee unthinkable violence in South Sudan. This led to pandemonium, with hundreds of people physically fighting one another over the little food that remained. In Chad and Malawi, millions of refugees lost aid practically overnight as the U.N. Refugee Agency closed American aid programs.

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Those still in Sudan face what is now one of the worlds’ greatest humanitarian crises. Over 30 million people – half the population – need food and medical care. Now that there only lifeline has been taken away, the World Health Organization estimates five million Sudanese people will lose access to health services.

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… and it’s just going to get worse. The people in Burkina Faso – whose government’s war against Islamist insurgents has intensified, leading to more deaths and mass displacement – now have no support. In a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, a million people – including 500,000 children – forced to flee Myanmar have nothing to eat. Even if they live, they will be more susceptible to diseases like tuberculosis and H.I.V. as clinics and programs close their doors.

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Because USAID is one of the largest providers of health care to Indonesia, H.I.V., tuberculosis and malaria will likely explode. Women who are being mistreated and/or trafficked in Cambodia and Guatemala are now unguarded. Colombia will probably become destabilized again. The one-half of Haitians who rely on humanitarian aid will again face, at best, malnutrition and, at worst, starvation. The hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Syria who live in camps will soon have no food, fuel or water, and the over 1.6 million Ukrainian children at risk of forced deportation, indoctrination, and militarization under Russian occupation are now unprotected.

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Dangerous pathogens have already been left unsecured at labs across Africa. Airport and checkpoint inspections for mpox, Ebola, and other infectious diseases have been reduced or stopped altogether – meaning millions of unscreened animals and people are freely crossing borders. This puts Americans directly at risk because diseases – like Ebola in Uganda, the Marburg virus in Tanzania, the mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Lassa in Nigeria – can obviously travel quickly.