By Millions of people around the world are today feeling the repercussions of President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze international aid for 90 days and shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, by far the largest provider of foreign assistance around the world.
From biosecurity and vaccines for viruses such as polio, mpox and Ebola, to food supplies for famine-stricken countries and essential treatment for people living with HIV, a vast number of programs around the world have been hit by the decision, current and former USAID workers told NBC News.
“Probably we have lost lives,” Marcia Wong, who served as deputy assistant administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance under the Biden administration, said in an interview earlier this month.
Everybody interviewed for this article spoke to NBC News before the Trump administration said Sunday that it was eliminating 2,000 positions at USAID, and placing all but a fraction of other staffers on leave.
Here, NBC News looks at the broad impact the pause on foreign aid has had and what is at stake.
According to the government website ForeignAssistance.gov, the U.S. disbursed around $72 billion in foreign aid in the year ending Sept. 20, 2023 — the latest year with up-to-date data. USAID, which for decades has served as the country’s primary foreign aid agency, managed around $44 billion in global assistance that fiscal year, disbursing that money to aid programs and operations in 160 countries and regions around the world.
After Trump signed an executive order Jan. 20 freezing foreign assistance, American-funded aid and development programs worldwide were forced to scale back, shut down and lay off staff.
