President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development was never just a budgetary decision; It was a political declaration that welfare abroad be damned — ushering in a new era of direct and in-your-face U.S. intervention.
A June analysis in The Lancet attempted to quantify the potential impacts of the Trump administration’s massive 83% cut to all USAID programs, focusing on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan prior to the agency’s final shutdown on July 1.
The results were incredibly grim: If USAID cuts remain in place, by 2030, they will lead to an estimated 14.05 million avoidable fatalities, with a lower bound estimate of around 8.5 million and an upper bound approaching 20 million.
From 2001–21, USAID programs saw a funding increase of 97%. That expansion helped reduce all-cause mortality by 15%, toddler mortality by 44% and is estimated to have prevented nearly 92 million deaths.
The United States didn’t just write checks; it helped stitch together gashes in medical coverage by establishing robust supply chains, organizing vaccination campaigns and developing critical health infrastructure.
With the sudden cuts, many of these programs have been virtually wiped out overnight. In late June, The Washington Post released an article detailing over two dozen interviews around Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum that pointed to the horrifying predicaments many were forced into with the shuttering of critical resources.
An especially upsetting example was the sudden and drastic cuts to Emergency Response Rooms — a Sudanese grassroots aid movement. Such community-driven initiatives have been crucial in providing localized, rapid support and responding to on-the-ground issues often more effectively than international missions.
Emergency Response Rooms operated over 1,400 soup kitchens across Sudan, many serving as a primary source of sustenance for countless communities. USAID cuts have already forced over 70% of them to shutter, harming food access for 2.8 million people in a country where 24.6 million already suffer from food insecurity.
This is truly America First! Except when a greatly weakened health system creates a fertile ground for known diseases and the spread of new and unknown epidemics, which rarely respect borders. Back in April, the World Health Organization warned that “Sudan’s health system is at a breaking point,” noting that more than two-thirds of Sudan’s states were battling three or more disease outbreaks.
Except when the continued hardships across the Sahel are exploited by troublesome foreign actors — namely Russia through the Africa Corps — which either inadvertently or deliberately fosters extremist safe havens throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Again, a number of these extremists, too, do not tend to respect borders.
It is simple: If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.
If anyone asks why it is beneficial for the United States to be at every negotiating table and have its fingers in every pie: it is not only because it reinforces geopolitical influence and stability, but also because it helps curb the spread of disease, which can be well monitored and mitigated with robust early warning systems and adequate humanitarian resources.
In an increasingly interconnected and globalized world, concentrated involvement in foreign aid and the development of robust international systems is not some ‘woke globalist hoax’ to steal your hard-earned money, but rather a crucial tool for preventing breakdowns in diplomacy and preserving the American-led world order. A failure to act will only lead to future military deployments, uncapped refugee flows and a growth in general instability throughout the world.
Foreign assistance helped cement the United States into the position of one of the globe’s bipolar powers — and, for a brief moment — the world’s sole unipolar power. The Marshall Plan revitalized European economies and helped to fend off the steady encroachment of communism in Western Europe, while the Point Four Program did the same in many underdeveloped countries around the world. These were both undertakings of foreign aid and assistance.
But even for those who may welcome this as a move to reduce government spending and realign American economic policies, it is the fact that these cuts were done in such a slapdash way that will condemn millions of Sudanese to avoidable death and suffering.
The Assessment Capacities Project, a global humanitarian analysis non-governmental organization, found in a March report that cuts and stop-work orders were unclear and sudden, with proper channels of communication collapsing alongside funding.
I do not see why, in place of a sudden withdrawal, there was not a steady effort to draw back and leave established resources to local groups — such as Emergency Response Rooms — to ensure that the region does not continue to slip into chaotic depths.
This could have taken the form of a phased withdrawal, clearly communicated and coordinated with both local and international organizations. Trump could even have used his “Art of the Deal” skills to steadily replace humanitarian assistance with favorable economic benefits and engagement, though he doesn’t seem to be in the mood to make many deals since he has party control over all branches of the government.
