The Donald Trump administration slashed the agency's budget and laid off most of its workers in both the US and abroad. At the same time, the agency also stopped payment to numerous non-profits whose employees worked with USAID employees to promote and establish programs.

Whether the evisceration of USAID was good or bad depended upon one's viewpoint, ideological leanings, and what one is willing to believe in support of "the cause." For example, the Harvard University School of Public Health put out a release last December that claimed that the USAID reduction "has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition" in poor countries. Not to be outdone, National Public Radio claimed in the medical journal, the Lancet, that 30 million people will die in the next four years because of Trump's action against USAID.

There is no way to verify these numbers. It is true that many people in poor countries depend, to a certain extent, upon US foreign aid, although much of it consists of military aid to countries like Israel and Ukraine. We also know that the US government uses foreign aid to leverage its influence over other countries. According to the blog "Offshoot":

For over six decades, U.S. foreign aid—in the form of food, economic, and military aid—has been a strategic tool to advance American interests in the Majority World, under the guise of humanitarian assistance. In 2024, the U.S. alone contributed over 43% of global aid, wielding unparalleled influence over global development. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has been at the heart of this effort, shaping food systems, economic policies, and health programmes across the Majority World.