Trump's permanent USAID cuts slam humanitarian programs worldwide: 'We
are being pushed off a cliff'
[February 28, 2025]
By GERALD IMRAY
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The Trump administration’s decision to
terminate 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts slammed humanitarian
projects worldwide on Thursday, from a new hospital in troubled Haiti to
the biggest HIV program on the planet in South Africa.
Health groups, non-governmental organizations and others who received
money from the U.S. aid agency to do good work had been bracing for bad
news since President Donald Trump’s executive order froze the funding
for a 90-day review on Jan. 20.
But even those who feared the worst were stunned by the extent of the
permanent cuts announced Wednesday, barely a month into the review.
“We are being pushed off a cliff,” said Dr. Kate Rees, a public health
specialist who works at one of the biggest NGOs fighting HIV in South
Africa, the country worst affected by the disease. The NGO lost all its
USAID grants, she said, when they were expecting their funding to be
reduced.
Termination letters land worldwide
In the hours after the Trump administration announced it was cutting
some $60 billion in funding, termination letters arrived at NGOs across
the world. They advised that their programs providing life-saving
assistance against hunger and disease and performing other humanitarian
work were being ended.
The letters said that the programs were being defunded “for convenience
and the interests of the U.S. government,” according to a person with
knowledge of the content who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.
The letters added that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and an
official acting as a deputy administrator of USAID “have determined your
award is not aligned with Agency priorities and made a determination
that continuing this program is not in the national interests,”
according to the person.
Some 10,000 USAID contracts were ended.
After holding on for weeks in hopes that the Trump administration would
relent, some organizations shut down life-saving programs within hours
of receiving contract terminations. In Somalia, U.S.-based Alight closed
the doors Thursday on the sole health clinics in 13 communities and
stopped therapeutic nutrition for 1,700 malnourished children a day.
“Starting today, without providing those health services, those feeding
services, without providing that access to water and sanitation,
absolutely people will die,” said Jocelyn Wyatt, the chief executive of
Alight.
“Women and children will go hungry, food will rot in warehouses while
families starve, children will be born with HIV — among other
tragedies,” said InterAction, an alliance of international and American
NGOs. “This needless suffering will not make America safer, stronger, or
more prosperous. Rather, it will breed instability, migration, and
desperation.
Liz Schrayer, head of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, a non-profit
that promotes U.S. diplomatic and humanitarian efforts, said that the
Trump administration’s move would cede international influence to China,
Russia and Iran. “The American people deserve a transparent accounting
of what will be lost – on counterterror, global health, food security,
and competition,” she said.
'Appalled at the announcement'
Trump and advisor Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have
hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their
push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAID
projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money.
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Sibusisiwe Ngalombi, 42, who is a community health worker, shows a
USAID jacket she used to wear in Harare, Zimbabwe, Friday, Feb. 7,
2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Ufumeli)
The U.S. is by far the world’s biggest donor, and NGOs in almost
every corner of the world had feared over the last month for their
programs and the impact cuts would have on millions of vulnerable
people they help.
The International Rescue Committee, which works in some of the worst
humanitarian crises, said the “widespread termination” of USAID
funding could cut off help for millions of people and urged the U.S.
administration to reconsider. The Danish Refugee Council said it was
“appalled at the announcement from the U.S. government to terminate
nearly all its aid contracts.”
The impact was felt immediately at the grass-roots level in Haiti,
the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and wracked by gang
violence, hunger and disease.
A desperately needed new hospital, which was opened last week in the
western coastal town of Petit-Trou-de-Nippes by the Colorado-based
nonprofit Locally Haiti lost funding and six jobs for doctors and
nurses and 13 positions for community health workers have been
eliminated.
“We have this new health center, and now significant staff has been
cut as it’s opening,” said Wynn Walent, the organization's executive
director. “To see that being cut at this moment is incredibly
dangerous.”
‘We will see lives lost’
Health experts have raised alarm over the future of extensive and
long-running HIV programs in Africa, where USAID has helped fund the
President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief started by President
George W. Bush in 2003.
PEPFAR is credited with saving millions of lives in Africa and more
than 26 million lives globally, largely by helping people get
antiretroviral treatment that keeps the virus in check and keeps
them alive.
In South Africa, which runs the biggest HIV program in the world,
providing treatment to 5.5 million people with U.S. assistance, an
alliance of health groups said the cuts were a crisis and people
would die.
“We will see lives lost,” said professor Linda-Gail Bekker, director
of the Desmond Tutu HIV Center. Among other work, the center oversaw
studies that found a revolutionary new injectable drug that can
prevent HIV infections, but it has now lost USAID funding.
“We are going to see this epidemic walk back because of this,"
Bekker said.
The health groups said the U.S. government had abandoned the most
vulnerable people in South Africa and abroad.
Bekker said that they expected the Trump administration to target
specific programs like those that offer treatment for gay men and
sex workers, but were astonished at how almost every program was
cut. She said they didn’t know of one HIV NGO or health center in
South Africa that didn’t lose its USAID funding.
“This has been across the board,” she said. “This is programs for
children, orphans, for young women and girls. It is not hyperbole
that I predict a huge disaster ... unless we can fill the gap.”
___
AP writers Matthew Lee and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington, Dánica
Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Monika Pronczuk in Dakar,
Senegal, contributed to this report.
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