The United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, was the largest provider of international humanitarian aid through Democratic and Republican administrations alike. USAID led the world in improving global health and eradicating diseases before they crossed U.S. borders; provided disaster relief to people facing extreme crisis, conflict, and poverty; and promoted education, economic development, environmental protection, and democratic governments around the globe. Furthermore, USAID did this on a relatively small budget: 0.6% of the 2024 U.S. budget.
USAID also directly benefitted the United States. USAID bought $2 billion annually directly from U.S. farmers to distribute around the world. USAID directly employed almost 4,500 Americans and indirectly supported tens of thousands of others. In North Carolina alone, USAID provided nearly $1 billion to North Carolina nonprofits and universities annually. Because of USAID’s destruction, its contractors—including research institutes, faith-based charities, and non-governmental groups in North Carolina—have laid off thousands of staff, with some closing their doors completely.
What does USAID’s closure mean to the world? Boston University has estimated that nearly 300,000 people around the world—about 103 an hour, mostly children—have died in just the past six months as a result. Cuts to USAID could cause 14 million deaths by 2030, An estimated 1,500 babies a day are being born HIV-positive because USAID cuts stopped their mothers’ medication, and millions of doses of medicines—medicines that were donated by pharmaceutical companies—are sitting, expiring. Nearly $800,000 worth of food intended to go to starving families has already been destroyed because it expired, sitting in warehouses. Looking to U.S. economic and security interests, we are already seeing China filling voids where USAID has withdrawn.
Where, then, do we go from here? Claims that fraud, corruption, and waste were rampant in the agency are not accurate, and the myths about USAID that social media perpetuated are misinformed and erroneous. However, there certainly are ways in which foreign aid can be reimagined to be even stronger and have even greater impact. Transforming America’s approach to international development from a cumbersome bureaucracy to a more nimble, dynamic, and collaborative enterprise could be a silver lining to emerge from USAID’s abrupt closure.
Whatever the form in which U.S. foreign aid exists moving forward, the cost of not reaching out to our global neighbors, of sitting by when we could save lives and make those lives healthier and more fulfilling, when we could prevent crises rather than using military might to stamp them down, is too great to fathom.
As the richest country in the world, we must be more generous than that. Political tides inevitably turn, and when they do, we must be ready to embrace fresh opportunities and to rebuild our approach to international engagement with more diversity, deeper humility, greater equity, and a joyful commitment to liberty, peace, and justice for all citizens of the world.
In the meantime, asking our congressional representatives for an accounting of where the funds will go that have been stripped from USAID—and how those funds will be even better used to improve lives here in the U.S. and to strengthen our economic, political, and security presence in the world— seems a fair question to ask.
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