Six months ago, the Trump administration paused almost all foreign assistance. As more than US$60 billion of programs suddenly stopped, we predicted that people would die, the world would become less fair and US soft power would fizzle. In a spirit of holding ourselves accountable, we ask has this happened?
There is no doubt that people have died as a direct result of this decision. Individual cases were documented in the days following the decision, and this effect has continued to be tracked. A recent study published in leading medical journal The Lancet has put together the effect of the program cuts—the vaccinations and medication not delivered, the food and clean water not provided—and projects 14 million additional deaths because of this policy decision. Boston University estimates nearly 90,000 people have died in the past six months because of the funding freeze on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) alone, just one of many programs to get the chop.
To give another example, one of the devastating consequences was an immediate increase in the number of children dying from hunger. Before the cuts, the US Agency for International Development directly funded around 50 percent of the world’s production of ready-to-use therapeutic foods specifically designed to treat severe malnutrition. Considered a miracle food, ready-to-use therapeutic foods have a 90 percent success rate in saving children from severe acute malnutrition. While the Trump administration has subsequently pledged US$50 million to fund ready-to-use therapeutic foods, disruptions to supply chains have already caused many of the world’s poorest to miss out on the prescription food they need to stave off death. And because malnourished children have weakened immune systems, they were more likely to die from common childhood illnesses. Broader health cuts meant that there is little to no funding for tuberculosis, malaria, HIV immunisation or basic health needs.
The world has become less fair and less stable as a result. As feared, most programs that received stop work orders never returned. The pause in foreign assistance was followed by a decision to permanently cut 83 percent of all development aid provided through USAID. Then on 1 July the agency was permanently closed and its remaining functions rolled into the State Department.
This means a permanent shift towards greater inequality and instability. The United States had been the biggest overseas development assistance (ODA) funder—in 2024 it spent more than twice the amount of the second biggest donor (Germany), accounting for 30 percent of total ODA that year. As former senior AusAID official Robyn Davies puts it: ‘When that much of a thing goes missing, it’s clearly at risk of collapse.’ Worse, other countries have followed the US’s lead, most notably Britain.
This is a false economy that is storing up more crises for the future. Development funding is preventive security. Supporting a poor country’s health system prevents a disruptive pandemic. Staving off government collapse prevents a failed state exporting crime and violence. Helping countries adapt to climate change avoids migration crises.
Finally, there has been a demonstrable reduction in US soft power, detectable in conversations among global foreign policy elites. And not everyone is mourning this. At the Raisina Dialogue in March 2025, Ayoade Alakija, chair of the African Vaccine Delivery Alliance was quoted saying: ‘Let our countries be independent. Let us stand up and look after our own people …. Let the world shift. This is a conversation about the global system.’
Since its inception, USAID had constituted an important tool of US soft power, strengthening US influence through humanitarian aid, economic partnerships and institutional development. By fostering goodwill, the agency bolstered diplomatic relationships, promoted political and economic models favourable to US interests, and worked to mitigate instability. This tool has now essentially gone, eroding decades of trust and partnerships, while signalling a clear message of unreliability in the international sphere.
There have been documented cases of China stepping in to fund programs when US foreign assistance stopped. Beijing announced funding for child literacy and nutrition programs in Cambodia just a week after US-funded programs ‘with almost identical goals’ were cancelled. Russian and Chinese teams were among the first to deploy to Myanmar following an earthquake in March in contrast to a lacklustre US response. The head of Russia’s international assistance agency has spoken openly about taking advantage of the void USAID’s demise has left.
Perhaps the most vivid demonstration was the recent United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development, held only once a decade. The US withdrew from negotiations and sent no delegation. This did not stop more than 15,000 people attending a gathering that produced an international agreement, an international business forum and a platform for action of 130 initiatives. On a topic that most of the world cares about deeply, the US was simply irrelevant.
The damage to US power, to global stability and to individual lives was all foreseeable six months ago. The tragedy is that the people who made the decision did not care about these consequences.
Melissa Conley Tyler is executive director and Heather Wrathall is senior policy analyst at the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D).
Image: USAID in Africa/Flickr.
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Six months later, US soft power feels effects of USAID cuts – The Strategist | ASPI's analysis and commentary site
