The 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference successfully masked US President Donald Trump’s declining approval rating with a crowd made up of 99 percent supporters. Claiming that nobody’s “ever seen four weeks like we’ve had,” the president sided with other speakers in a continuous attack on the “radical left.” Among his most appraised achievements was his administration’s decision to end what he called the “left-wing scam known as USAID,” the United States Agency for International Development. During the speech, he proudly announced that its personnel had been notified of a paid administrative leave—effective from January 20 and lasting 90 days. By February 23, 1,600 USAID personnel in the US would be fired, and the agency’s former offices repurposed for customs and border patrol agents.
Initially designed in 1961 to counter Soviet influence in struggling countries, USAID has provided resources to over 130 nations, accounting for 42 percent of the humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations. Until 2023, its funding averaged around 40 billion dollars per year. After cuts to positions and resources, the agency’s budget has now been reduced to approximately 100 million dollars. The freezing and blocking of USAID’s domestic workforce have had the most evident and severe consequences abroad. While the number of workers fired in the US amounts to just over 1,500 employees, the agency employs over 10,000 people around the globe. According to organizations worldwide that have received “Stop Work Orders,” the freezing of funds has led to an increased mortality rate in campaigns that fight cholera and malaria through prevention services, as well as a decline in HIV treatment availability. Affected nutrition programs for vulnerable children and women have also carried a rise in food insecurity, while migration and refugee protection have suffered greatly since its implementation.
Previously an outspoken defender of foreign aid programs, who nonetheless believed that slashing their funds could only bring balance, the now Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been tasked with dismantling the agency. Responsible for issuing waivers that could allow the continuation of programs deemed essential for global health and security, Rubio has faced criticism as organizations in Africa and Asia report severe difficulties, including personnel layoffs. Some have even called the waivers he referenced upon implementing the measure a “farce.” Most of the damaged organizations have preferred to remain anonymous due to fear of further retaliation should the funding cuts be reconfirmed. The International Council for Voluntary Agencies has anonymously recollected testimonies that affirm that suspending activities “means ceasing over 30,000 services, leading to increased open defecation, waterborne diseases, lack of sanitation, and hygiene, creating a public health issue for affected municipalities.”
There have been attempts to hold Trump’s administration accountable for exceeding its authority, as it is the Congress that should control and issue any measures related to the federal budget. The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) filed a lawsuit contending the dissolution of the agency is outright inconstitutional. Two weeks later, the preliminary injunction was denied by the US District Court of the District of Columbia. Both domestically and globally, opposition to the measure is shackled by the series of conditions imposed by the freezing of funds.
In the attempt to dodge rising criticisms, the Department of Government Efficiency has argued that the measures are reversable. Paradoxically, however, making aid cut reversals feasible will likely involve navigating persistent bureaucratic hurdles caused by the very personnel shortages the measure created. Having fired almost half of the staff that was in charge of distributing humanitarian aid from the US, the workforce outside the country cannot access payment systems because of the Stop Work Orders. Though other federal agencies have started rehiring staff after the first wave of measures was introduced, most USAID programs are still uncovered from such exemptions. Leaving foreign aid isolated has meant diverting attention from a significant amount of issues that are not reduced to sanitary and humanitarian aid. Wavering aid distribution also affected anti-narcotics programs in Mexico, has disrupted attempts to hold Russia accountable for war crimes, and have presented a major setback to independent media around the globe.
The measures obey the Trump administration’s redefinition of the standards for any organization seeking aid and international cooperation under the premises endorsed by “neoreactionary” ideologues, such as Curtis Yarvin. Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee every program must now respond to the questions: “Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”. Freezing foreign aid implies a strike to former principles of international cooperation sustained by different organizations and agencies that cooperated with USAID. Jeopardizing Congress’s wish to support “independent media and the free flow of information”, the prognosed budget of 268 million dollars is now halted, hitting over 6,000 journalists and nearly 1,000 organizations that were either news outlets or organizations that supported independent media. Seeking aid has also entered the famous “cultural battle” against the “radical marxist left” promoted and celebrated at CPAC: it has been demonstrated to be all and one with measures adopted by conservatives going around with Musk’s “chainsaw for bureaucracy.”
The new presidential agenda produces a “ripple effect” outside the US. Reducing staff and resources has far more drastic consequences where precariousness is countered by networks of organizations funded by the agency or other NGOs. Proposals to “shrink the State” have more profound echoes in countries such as Argentina, where the chainsawy for bureaucracy has led president Javier Milei to imitate the US’s withdrawal from the WHO. The Argentinian state’s shrinkage is also persecuted upon cultural grounds. In April 2024, the Argentinian Ministry of State Deregulation and Transformation suspended the activities of over 10,000 cooperatives. If Trump’s interruption of foreign aid barely represents one percent of the country’s GDP, cooperatives in Argentina represent over 15 percent of its GDP, employing over 400,000 people. The Ministry’s offering to Milei’s fiscal adjustments has reduced the National Institute of Associativism and Social Economy’s (INAES) staff drastically, while most of its programs are defunded, and its main task, the organization and funding of cooperatives, torn to shreds.
The ripple effect manifests not only in the lack of resources, but also in the effectiveness to sow distrust, rivalry and division, blowing critical media everywhere. Affecting NGOs that had already incurred expenses, they can no longer supply the funds because their accounts have been frozen. How can they explain the situation to desperate aid recipients? Distrust has also sparked amidst organizations that unveiled their sources were provided by USAID. A leading progressist and opposition organization in Argentina, Revista Anfibia, received criticism from subscribers and detractors alike: how could they claim to be an “independent” media if they depended on US federal budget? The fact is that most of these small, independent, and progressist media do not receive resources directly from the Agency, but from intermediaries such as the National Endowment for Democracy. Its support to Anfibia since 2019 was crucial to position it among the most prestigious South American centers that formed media leaders. Cooperation, in this scenario, did not imply any interferral with its activites or editorial lines, rather the possibility to build a meaningful network of journalism. Trump and Musk’s actions against such democratic cooperation deeply damages networks such as RedLatam that continue to form young journalists or organize public outreach activities to prevent permanent shutdown.
Assistance and aid as principles for international cooperation have been crucial contributions for organizations facing challenging economic and political situations. Whether the measure may be reversed or not, freezing USAID’s cooperation and resource distribution threatens the disappearance of small organizations, principally in contexts where corrupt and authoritarian governments yield no funding. Circumstances are more threatening where media can hardly count upon publicity and the local community’s contributions for their survival. When the option is available, the risk is falling prey to funding sources that request changing the editorial line and the administration of its activities. The contingency of the situation has sollicited the activation of pro bono networks that give organizations the opportunity to request legal support to explore options for their sustainability.
The fact that freezing USAid funds creates a “vacuum that plays into the hands of propagandists and authoritarian states” is not so much a “tragic irony” as much as its natural consequence. Self praising the policies proposed by his administration, Trump has publicly congratualed himself for “dominating” the capital and sending bureaucrats “packing”. Anyone who is against Musk’s attempt to sweep federal administration has literally been invited to exit the room. When turning to the facts, however, the praise falls pray to meaningful inconsistencies in the management of resources. Ultimately, the questions is not so much regarding the management of resources and employment of bureaucrats, as much as the reconfiguration of an international network of cooperation. As the program advances, it will exacerbate polarization between far-right sympathizers and progressist media. Cutting the Agency’s funds influences the functioning of a global network that prevailed due to its support for democratic cooperation, limiting its actions, but also potentially reconfiguring the network’s sustainability.
Cover photo: Tributes are placed beneath the covered seal of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) at their headquarters in Washington, DC, on February 7, 2025. US President Donald Trump on February 7, 2025 called for USAID to be shuttered, escalating his unprecedented campaign to dismantle the humanitarian agency. (Photo by Mandel Ngan / AFP)
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