Writers Yonette Joseph Malika Khurana and Adam Pasick said in their story "Trump's Foreign Aid Freeze Has Created Chaos" that President Donald Trump's executive order freezing most U.S. foreign aid for 90 days has tumultuously disrupted programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases, run clinical trials, and seek to provide shelter for millions of displaced people across the globe.
The US Agency for International Development is the main government organization that provides humanitarian aid, such as food, medical assistance, and disaster relief. The freeze has hit it the hardest. Mr. Trump has accused the agency of rampant corruption and fraud without providing evidence. Billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tasked with cutting federal budgets and programs, boasted online of "feeding USAAID into the wood chipper."
The Trump Administration ordered thousands of the agency's workers to return to the US from overseas, put them on indefinite administrative leave, and shifted oversight of the agency to the State Department. The administration also announced plans to gut the agency's staff, reducing USAID's workforce of more than 10,000 to perhaps a few hundred. Last week, a judge temporarily blocked elements of the Trump administration's plan to shut down the agency, though the aid freeze remains in effect.
Khurana and Pasick addressed the impact of the President's decision: "Critics say Mr. Trump's executive order will cause a humanitarian catastrophe and undermine America's influence, reliability, and global standing. The United States spent nearly $72 billion on foreign assistance in 2023, including spending by USAAID, the State Department, and programs managed by agencies like the Peace Corps."
The United States-- the world's largest economy-- gives much less foreign aid as a percentage of its economic output than other developed countries. USAAID spent about $38 billion on health services, disaster relief, anti-poverty efforts, and other programs in fiscal year 2023-- about 0.7 percent of the federal budget. Khurana and Pascik outlined the contours of the policy: "Mr. Trump's freeze on US foreign aid does not apply to weapons support for countries like Israel and Egypt. Emergency food assistance is supposed to be exempt, but many such programs have suffered because of government payment system disruptions. In 2023, the last year for which full data is available, Ukraine, which has been waging a war against Russia since Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022, received $16.6 billion, the most US assistance of any country or region. The bulk of that went to economic development, followed by humanitarian aid and security."
Foreign aid can be a form of soft power - non-military power - that serves a country's strategic interests, strengthens allies, and helps prevent conflicts. Our country should grasp this concept after long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. USAID money has gone to humanitarian aid, development assistance, direct budget support in Ukraine, peacebuilding in Somalia, disease surveillance in Cambodia, vaccination programs in Nigeria, HIV prevention in Uganda, and maternal health assistance in Zambia. The agency has also helped contain major Ebola outbreaks and funded conservation and environmental programs.
Why is soft power necessary? It's a cheap form of power projection that helps our country in the current Cold War with the China/Russia orbit. China is already spending money on poor countries (Belt and Road Initiative), and it expects those countries to bandwagon with it in foreign relations. In terms of economics, soft power also makes a lot of sense. What's the foreign aid budget compared to the military budget? Then there's the humanitarian argument - foreign aid does a lot of good in making the world better for people in other countries, strengthening our reputation as a humanitarian power.
Is the government's administration of foreign aid perfect? No, I'm sure there's corruption, as there is throughout the government, but that doesn't mean we must do away with foreign aid, considering its importance. Let's make foreign aid better by weeding out any corruption. What side does our country move on this issue? I hope we have an honest conversation about foreign aid. What's the alternative? A Trump-style foreign policy that's a mixture of transactional exchanges, isolationism, demagoguery, and criticisms of the democratic world while our country makes concessions to the authoritarian world.
Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer of the Peace Economy Project
