On July 2, Ana Faguy reported for BBC News that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had formally shut down after President Donald Trump gradually dismantled the agency due to its allegedly wasteful spending. “These aid cuts could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to a warning published by researchers in the Lancet medical journal,” Faguy wrote.
In a State Department memo titled “Make Foreign Aid Great Again,” announcing the shutdown, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated: “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown. On the global stage, the countries that benefit the most from our generosity usually fail to reciprocate.”
“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end. Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests,” Rubio furthermore noted. “For Americans and many around the world, July 1st will mark the beginning of a new era of global partnership, peace, investment, and prosperity.”
“In 2023 alone, USAID provided essential healthcare to 92 million women and children, as well as services to 20 million people infected with HIV. Many of those services now gone or in suspension until Congress decides if it will extend the lifespan of the President’s Emergency Program on AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), whose latest one-year authorization expired in March,” Stefan Anderson wrote for Health Policy Watch. “Facing their highest debt burdens in decades, many of the world’s poorest nations are unlikely to be able to compensate for the budget hole blown open by USAID’s withdrawal.”
Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush have criticized the shuttering of USAID.
USAID Has Formally Shut Down – Healthcare Innovation
