Trump reorganises foreign aid at fraction of USAid’s Size

[WASHINGTON, DC] The Trump administration is reorganising foreign aid at a fraction of its former size after dismantling USAid, a move critics say has cost millions of lives.

The State Department announced on Friday (Mar 20) that crisis relief aid is being consolidated under a new Disaster and Humanitarian Response bureau with a direct-hire staff of more than 200 people, according to senior officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to brief reporters.

That’s about a third of the equivalent number of people who worked on humanitarian assistance for the now defunct agency, known as the US Agency for International Development, which US President Donald Trump shuttered last year. 

The staffing for other issues previously handled by USAid is higher because areas from health to food aid to security assistance are now handled by other bureaus and agencies, the officials said.

The international humanitarian assistance budget for this year was slashed to US$5.4 billion. The administration also put US$12.7 billion towards global health assistance and got recipient countries to invest billions more. By contrast, USAid managed around US$43 billion overall in fiscal year 2023.

The Trump administration says it’s improving aid by maximising efficiencies, ending programmes focused on climate and social issues, focusing on life-saving work and encouraging burden sharing. But the move reflects Trump’s shift away from overseas aid to more transactional and bilateral deals.

With reduced resources, it’s impossible for US foreign aid to have as much health impact as before, said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, a Washington-based advocacy group focused on humanitarian crises.

“It’s nowhere near the same quality and level of assistance, there are real costs and real damage that it’s doing, and the US is just doing far less,” said Konyndyk, who worked in senior USAid positions in the Biden and Obama administrations.

Dismantling USAid could result in about 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to a study released in June in the prominent medical journal The Lancet. State Department officials rejected that conclusion, saying those forecasts were based on the mistaken assumption the US would end foreign assistance rather than reorganise it.

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The Trump administration has given US$2 billion to the United Nations’ (UN) humanitarian fund, despite halting its regular payments to the global body in order to pressure UN leadership into spending less money on social issues.

The US has also focused on global health deals to support foreign governments, although the New York Times reported earlier this week that the State Department is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with HIV in Zambia to compel the government to give the US more access to its critical minerals.

Asked to comment on the report, a State Department spokesperson cited longstanding US foreign assistance to Zambia and willingness to help improve health-care infrastructure in the country.

The spokesperson also highlighted the need for the nation to modernise industries including mining to attract investment, and the Trump administration’s intention to use foreign aid to advance US strategic interests. BLOOMBERG