The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officially ceased operations on July 1, drawing both praise and alarm. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the move, calling it the end of “government-sanctioned inefficiency.” “Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests,” Rubio wrote on Substack.
Foreign aid programs will now be managed by the State Department, but only those that “align with administration policies—and which advance American interests,” according to Rubio.
The abrupt dismantling of USAID was led by the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an initiative backed by Elon Musk.
Thousands of global aid programs have been eliminated, including those providing vaccines, maternal care, clean water, and food security. A new analysis published in The Lancet estimates that the cuts could lead to over 14 million preventable deaths by 2030.
Children under the age of five are projected to make up more than 4.5 million of those deaths. Critics warn the humanitarian consequences of this move could outweigh any perceived gains in government efficiency.