The Consequences of the U.S. Foreign Aid Freeze
Documenting the impacts of the Trump administration’s freeze and termination of foreign assistance programs and the ongoing dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development
Latest Developments
May 1, 2025
NEW: Stand Up for Aid Situation Report #10 (04/25/25)
UPDATED: Stand Up for Aid: International Aid Review Timeline and Dismantling of USAID Personnel Timeline (04/25/25) (See more Stand Up for Aid reports)
As a result of the funding cuts, the Center for Victims of Torture, an organization that offers counseling and rehabilitative care to survivors of torture in Ethiopia, Jordan, and elsewhere, has had to pause services, which “meant telling people who survived torture and fled from authoritarian regimes and from active conflict zones that the treatment that we were providing them was finished, without any advance warning.” (Washington Post, 5/1/25)
According to Avril Benoît, the CEO of Doctors Without Borders, their “nutrition programs in Baidoa, Somalia, have reported an increase in malnutrition admissions since the funding cuts. MSF admitted, all of a sudden, 195 children with severe acute malnutrition in March alone. Severe acute malnutrition means that if the children don't receive therapy, they could die within weeks. The MSF-supported Bay Regional Hospital in Baidoa has received patients, especially women, who have come from as far as 120 miles away. When the wider network of health-care services shuts down, it means people have to travel that much further to where our programs are located, and that time, that distance, you can imagine for somebody who's sick or carrying a severely malnourished child, could mean life or death. It's one of the reasons that community health programs are so important.” (Time, 4/30/25)
“Several U.N. agencies that provide aid to children, refugees and other vulnerable people around the world are slashing jobs or cutting costs in other ways, with officials pointing to funding reductions mainly from the United States and warning that vital relief programs will be severely affected as a result. The U.N. World Food Program is expected to cut up to 30% of its staff. The head of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said it would downsize its headquarters and regional offices to reduce costs by 30% and cut senior-level positions by 50%.” (PBS, 4/29/25)
The U.N. refugee agency in Mexico has closed four offices in the country and laid off 190 people due to the “serious funding crisis” facing the agency, the head of UNHCR in Mexico said on Tuesday, after U.S. President Donald Trump slashed overseas aid. (Reuters, 4/29/25)
In South Sudan, “eight people died of cholera [in April] trying to find medical treatment after U.S.-funded clinics in Jonglei State were shuttered.” (The New Humanitarian, 04/29/2025)
In Mali, “[a]ll 33 rural health centers lost a USAID-funded programme that had been providing free consultations and medications to pregnant mothers and children under-five.” (Context, 04/29/2025)
In Nigeria, a Mercy Corps program to support health facilities that “provide lifesaving nutrition support to over 55,000 children under the age of 5 and 11,500 pregnant women” was terminated without warning. (OPB, 04/25/2025)
International Impacts
Global Health
According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in Somalia, “the closure of maternal and child health clinics and a therapeutic feeding center in Baidoa, cut off monthly care to hundreds of malnourished children. MSF nutrition programs in Baidoa have reported an increase in severe acute malnutrition admissions since the funding cuts. The MSF-supported Bay Regional Hospital has received patients traveling as far as 120 miles for care due to facility closures elsewhere.” (Medecins Sans Frontieres, 04/24/25)
U.S. aid cuts are “disrupting efforts to vaccinate children against deadly diseases almost as much as the COVID-19 pandemic did, the United Nations said on Thursday.” Along with outbreaks of infectious diseases like measles and yellow fever, vaccines “were significantly affected in nearly half of countries at the start of April due to the funding cuts.” These cuts also “reduced vaccine supplies and hampered disease surveillance.” (Reuters, 04/24/25)
In Nepal, the most at-risk people for HIV “have been deprived of pre-exposure prophylaxis since the USAID-funded programmes were suspended in the last week of January.” Previously “over 1,500 at-risk people from 26 high-risk districts were receiving medication through the USAID’s programme,” “including pregnant women whose husbands are HIV positive.” (Asian News Network, 04/24/25)
Yale University lost support for a program to train “epidemiologists and laboratory specialists to monitor malaria, dengue, antimicrobial resistance and vaccine efficacy” in Chad, which would have empowered the country to “identify and respond to public health threats without waiting for external help.” Yale also lost a $15 million award for health education initiatives in Liberia where the foreign aid freeze had already “shuttered the country’s only high-fidelity simulation facility used for life-saving clinical education.” (Yale Daily News, 04/21/25)
For CBS News Sunday Morning, Ted Koppel reports on the “dangers posed by cuts to U.S. foreign aid,” including the end of funding for a children's clinic in Nigeria. (CBS News, 4/20/2025)
At one clinic in Zambia, over 6,400 HIV positive patients have lost their access to healthcare services and medications due to canceled contracts and staffing cuts from the review and cancellation of U.S. foreign assistance. (NPR, 04/18/2025)
According to a “What’s In” and “What’s Out” list disseminated by USAID leadership, “awards with a focus on ‘broad and stand-alone behavior change, health systems strengthening, knowledge management, broad research, and technical assistance (not directly tied to lifesaving service delivery activities)’ will be cut from future foreign aid in the health sector. (Devex, 04/17/25)
In Nigeria and other parts of West Africa, the rainy season is rapidly approaching, and with rain comes deadly malaria-carrying mosquitoes. A clinic that “once served 300 people a day in the conflict-hit Borno state have abruptly shut down.” The defunding of USAID is “unravelling health care systems across Africa that were built from a complicated web of national health ministries, the private sector, nonprofits and foreign aid.” This endangers “the poorest of the poor, out in remote areas of Nigeria and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, they're the ones who will be cut off.” (France24, 04/15/25)
Malaria’s progress is at risk because of the foreign aid cuts. In Africa, “stocks of rapid diagnostic tests and medicines have reached critically low levels.” These cuts also “threaten to undermine critical investments in scientific innovation, including in new and improved preventive, diagnostic and treatment interventions as well as in new tools to address drug and insecticide resistance.” (World Health Organization, 04/11/25)
In South Sudan, eight people, including five children, “died on a three-hour walk to seek medical treatment for cholera,” following the U.S. foreign aid cuts, which caused local health services to close. “Three of the children were under the age of 5.” (Reuters, 04/09/2025)
Counter-Terrorism & Conflict Stabilization
As much as 50% of humanitarian demining projects have been suspended in Colombia due to the Trump administration's funding freeze. Despite NGO and government efforts, Colombia experienced 262 landmine casualties in 2024. José Antonio Delgado, the ICRC's National Director of Operations says, "The impact of each of these [incidents] is not only reflected in the number of people injured or killed. When you stop having mobility, the communities see an impact in terms of food security - you cannot access your fields, your territories, you cannot grow crops - difficulties in accessing essential services that can range from access to health, but also access to water.” (The Latin Times, 4/15/25)
Sri Lanka's efforts to achieve "mine-free status” by 2027 is at risk due to the foreign aid freeze. The country needs to clear only 23 square kilometers more of the original 254 square kilometers that were mined during the country’s civil war. “There are around 3,000 workers participating in the de-mining operations, most of them recruited from among the civil war-affected communities. With the [funding] uncertainty, some groups have already started terminating their staff.” (AP, 04/04/2025)
As part of the mass foreign aid program cancellations, the Trump Administration “has terminated a U.S.-funded initiative that documents alleged Russian war crimes, including a sensitive database detailing the mass deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.” (Washington Post, 03/18/2025)
Supporting Vulnerable Populations
The progress that has been made to reduce global maternal mortality is being threatened by the foreign aid cuts. “Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births dropped by about 40 percent worldwide between 2000 and 2023” but “cuts have led to facility closures and loss of health workers, while also disrupting supply chains for lifesaving supplies and medicines such as treatments for hemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and malaria – all leading causes of maternal deaths.” (The Hill, 04/13/25)
In Guatemala, a program “to provide legal and psychosocial support to the Mujeres Achí, a group of ethnic-minority women in Guatemala who endured extreme sexual violence during the country’s internal armed conflict in the early 1980s” was forced to end just as the women were about to go to trial. (ABA Journal, 04/09/2025)
In Afghanistan, “a new $24 million grant from the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, to fight gender-based violence, provide psychosocial support, and other health services across the country” was terminated. A similar $17.1 million grant for UNFPA programming in Syria was also terminated. (Devex, 04/08/2025)
Church World Service, a faith-based American organization that focuses on disaster relief and refugee assistance, “had 27 grants with partners across Haiti worth more than $10 million that targeted nearly 82,000 people.” Already, the foundation reports “an estimated 500 to 600 Haitians being denied medical care each month; in some 14,500 Haitians losing access to seed loans, tools and other services; and in 40% fewer loans being available, according to the report.” (AP News, 04/4/25)
Food Security·
In Sudan, “twelve acutely malnourished infants living in one corner of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital” died of malnourishment. USAID-funded soup kitchens had been “the only lifelines for tens of thousands of people besieged by fighting.” (New York Times, 04/19/25)
Aid organization “Action Against Hunger” is closing its therapeutic feeding unit in Kabul this week because of the U.S. funding cuts. More than 3.5 million children in Afghanistan will suffer from acute malnutrition this year, an increase of 20% from 2024.” (AP, 4/15/2025)
MANA Nutrition, producer of the lifesaving “Plumpy’Nut” nutritional peanut mixture sent to malnourished communities worldwide, is now reliant on British billionaire. Despite the help, however, without U.S. assistance, there is not enough assurance that “they will keep reaching youth in impoverished countries. And they don’t expect philanthropy to replace government funding forever.” (AP, 04/14/25)
The U.S. used to be one of the UN World Food Program’s biggest donors, with their main country of focus being Ethiopia. These “populations continue to suffer from frequent food shortages with a government that’s often unable to fund emergency support for its own citizens.” Many of these communities were heavily reliant on USAID, so the aid cuts “had a devastating impact on millions of Ethiopians.” (PBS, 04/11/25)
Counter-Drug & Human Trafficking
In Peru, USAID had supported the fight against the illegal mining for gold done by drug gangs, but cuts have struck fear in citizens who believe that “the exit of USAID funding is going to set back the initial strides we have made to counter this threat.” At a broader level, these cuts would “mean that less attention to illegal mining is likely to mean smoother sailing for other trafficking operations as well.” (The Christian Science Monitor, 04/23/25)
In Colombia, the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) has been suspended. ICITAP “had recently launched a project to train about 600 Colombian police officials in investigating and tracking money laundering — crucial specialized skills to dismantle powerful criminal organizations.” (The Washington Post, 03/16/2025)
18 Black Hawk helicopters used by Colombian law enforcement to track and combat armed groups and drug traffickers have been grounded after funding for fuel and maintenance was paused. (The Washington Post, 03/16/2025)
“In Ecuador, one of the biggest cocaine-trafficking hubs, the country’s navy planned to begin construction this year on a $7 million dock for anti-narcotics operations along a coastline that has gone largely unprotected in recent years; the project is now on hold.” (The Washington Post, 03/16/2025)
Governance & Rule of Law
Halted conservation and biodiversity projects, have stalled “tens of millions of dollars [that] went into combating wildlife crime, tens of millions more into conserving vast natural landscapes in Africa and South America.” “USAID-funded projects identified by conservationists include Khetha, launched in 2018 and implemented by WWF South Africa, which addresses wildlife crime in and around South Africa’s Kruger National Park.” (Yale Environment360, 04/25/25)
Syria’s most skilled first responders, known as the White Helmets, lost U.S. funding during the foreign aid cuts that was meant to help excavate mass graves from the deadly regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Excavating these graves would help with the investigations in Syria’s war crimes, but without U.S. aid, more than 130,000 people will remain missing, and the “fledgling new state needs help clearing mines, unearthing mass graves and collecting evidence for war crimes investigations.” (NPR, 04/15/25)
In Cambodia, “the slashing of American foreign aid and President Trump’s executive order last month to gut American-funded news media like Radio Free Asia and Voice of America are erasing what little space for free speech remains.” (New York Times, 04/07/2025)
Radio Free Asia’s “shortwave radio broadcasts for its Mandarin, Tibetan and Lao language services have stopped entirely. The broadcaster, which is funded by the U.S. Congress, said a heavily reduced schedule remains in place for RFA Burmese, Khmer, Korean and Uyghur language services.” (Radio Free Asia, 04/04/2025)
Economic Development
The ripple effects from the USAID cuts will have a drastic impact on environmental stability. “USAID is no longer involved in agricultural development and climate resilience programs in Nepal, nor in a partnership supporting Indigenous territorial and environmental management plans in Brazil.” Additionally, USAID has canceled its interagency agreements with NASA, which led programs to help communities make more informed climate decisions. “This affects hubs across the U.S., as well as partner hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin America.” (Think Landscape, 04/23/25)
In Moldova, many projects in road-building, business, agriculture and education have been paused, alongside grants for most independent media organizations, creating an opening for increased Russian influence. (New York Times, 02/21/2025)
USAID-supported job training and skills programs in South and Central America have been shuttered. The programs were designed to expand local economic opportunities and combat one of the root causes of migration. (CNN, 02/13/2025)
Programs to enhance resilience in Latin America, including crop insurance for small farmers, adoption of drought-resistant seeds and agricultural practices, crop diversification initiatives, and the use of early warning systems and satellite data to reduce damage from flash floods and storms, have been suspended. (New York Times, 02/08/2025)
Domestic Impacts
The total number of foreign aid grant awardees “has fallen from 2,562 to 306” since the cuts have been implemented. The “award cancellations will bankrupt more firms, and considerably reduce capacity to negotiate the complexities of USAID contracting amongst many firms that survive...above ninety percent [of awards have been cut] for education, conflict mitigation, family planning, maternal and child health, governance, political competition, private sector and infrastructure—contractor and grantee capacity to deliver foreign assistance projects in those areas will rapidly collapse. U.S. foreign assistance will be considerably less effective as a result.” (The Center for Global Development, 04/21/25)
As a result of the Trump administration’s termination of the Power Africa program, $26.4 billion in deals with U.S. companies are now “in jeopardy.” “While some of these projects could go ahead without Power Africa, others are likely to hit roadblocks, people involved with the program said.” According to an internal Power Africa document, “Chinese and Middle Eastern companies are likely to fill this void.” (Washington Post, 04/14/25)
Despite a federal court order to pay out USAID contracts and grants for “all foreign assistance work done by mid-February,” the payments still have not been fulfilled, “and as of a March 27 court filing, more than 6,000 payments still needed to be processed.” If the administration does not resume issuing “significant payments,” organizations like Edesia and MANA Nutrition who manage life-saving food programs, will not be able to continue. “[N]early 19,000 American jobs have been lost and more than 166,000 global jobs have been lost” as a result of the funding cuts. (CNN, 04/02/2025)
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) “has had to wind down much of its USAID grant-related activities in Baltimore and internationally. This has resulted in the loss of more than 2,200 jobs—1,975 positions in 44 countries and another 247 positions in the U.S., most of them in Baltimore.” The cuts will impact JHU’s efforts to accelerate research to eliminate tuberculosis, reduce the spread of malaria in Tanzania, provide services and supports for pregnant mothers in Nigeria and Afghanistan, support diarrhea prevention in Bangladesh, provide HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs in India and Africa, “and work in partnership with governments and media in multiple countries to reduce vaccine hesitancy.” (Johns Hopkins University, 03/14/2025)
“After more than a decade of innovation labs that have helped feed the world and improve global food systems in partnership with the U.S. federal government, Kansas State University will suspend the operation of its two current Feed the Future Innovation Labs on April 12.” (Kansas State University, 03/14/2025)
“The termination of $800 million in grants to Johns Hopkins University is spurring the leading university funder of research and development to plan layoffs and cancel health projects, from breast-feeding support efforts in Baltimore to mosquito-net programs in Mozambique.” (Wall Street Journal, 03/11/2025)
NC State University has halted all work on two USAID-funded programs focused on workforce development in Honduras and agricultural research in Kenya. The University’s College of Agriculture and Life Science has used these programs to “compete internationally and have access to crops not commonly found in the U.S., as well as foster positive international trade relationships.” (Technician, 02/25/2025)
The Soybean Innovation Lab, located on the University of Illinois campus, will close due to the freeze on USAID funding. The lab is part of USAID’s “Feed the Future” initiative and incorporates contributions from other universities, including Iowa State University, Mississippi State University, and the University of Missouri. (AP, 02/19/2025)
Konbit Sante, a nonprofit based in Falmouth, Maine, ended its “long-running prenatal and newborn care program that served thousands in northern Haiti.” The nonprofit funded women’s health services at an emergency health clinic, added a 17-bed maternity ward, and provided training, supplies, and salaries to 8 nurses and 24 community health workers serving a poor neighborhood in Cap-Haitien, the country’s second-largest city. (Portland Press Herald, 02/08/2025)
At least 180,000 metric tons of planned purchases from American farmers have been stopped, including at least 60,000 metric tons of soy products which cannot be delivered. Planned grain sales for Food for Progress alone in January and February totaled about 315,000 metric tons, worth $150 million. (Devex, 02/07/2025; Reuters, 02/05/2025)
Grants to purchase 235,000 tons of wheat have been paused, leaving the wheat stranded in warehouses in Houston, TX. There are no USAID staff to book transportation, coordinate receiving the shipment, or ensure security for the food. (KHOU-11, 02/07/2025; Devex, 02/07/2025).
More than 29,000 metric tons of food commodities, valued at $39 million, are stuck at USAID warehouses in Houston unable to be loaded onto U.S.-flagged ships. The issue is also impacting ports in Boston, Miami, Norfolk, Savannah, New York, Chicago and Lake Charles. (KHOU-11, 02/07/2025).
“MCD Global Health of Hallowell, [Maine,] has had to halt its mission to combat malaria in Mozambique, Uganda and Niger.” The organization also operated a program to support maternal and child mental health in Benin and supported an HIV/AIDS programs for military personnel in Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe. (Portland Press Herald, 02/08/2025; Maine Wire, 02/06/2025)
The purchase of more than 200,000 metric tons of wheat, valued at $65 million and grown by American farmers, has been paused. (Star Tribune, 02/06/2025)
Contracts to produce vital nutrition treatments at U.S. factories in Georgia and Rhode Island have been suspended. Some previously manufactured nutrition treatments are sitting in warehouses ready to be delivered to children in dire need. (Boston Globe, 02/04/2025)