Written by Olivia Nater | Published: February 7, 2025
Trump’s attack dog Elon Musk is trying to cut foreign assistance and shut down the main disbursement agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Let’s take a closer look at what is happening and what it means for aid-dependent recipient communities around the world.
Contrary to what large swathes of the American public believe, the US actually spends a smaller proportion of its income on foreign aid than most other OECD¹ countries — in 2023 (calendar year), it spent just 0.24 percent of its Gross National Income (GNI) on overseas development aid, putting it in 26th place in the OECD ranking. Nevertheless, because the US is such a wealthy nation, the total amount of aid it disburses is still by far the highest of all donor countries.
USAID was created via executive order by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, to improve foreign assistance (with the recognition that the US also benefits from stability and economic development in other nations), as well as to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War.
USAID is the primary agency responsible for providing US foreign assistance, administering about 60 percent of the total foreign aid budget (which equated to roughly $44 billion of the total $72 billion disbursed in fiscal year 2023).
USAID programs span everything from emergency food aid, to essential health services including vaccination, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, and family planning, to fighting poverty and promoting democracy.
According to the Congressional Research Service, USAID is active in around 130 countries and employs(ed) more than 10,000 people, with two-thirds of them serving abroad. In fiscal year 2023, the top 10 USAID-managed aid recipient countries were Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Syria.
On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an executive order suspending all foreign assistance for 90 days, pending a review of whether programs align with his foreign policy goals. This action was later followed by a directive from Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that there would be some exemptions for emergency food programs as well as military aid to Egypt and Israel.
The attack on USAID came next, eagerly led by tech billionaire Elon Musk. As head of the newly made up “Department of Government Efficiency” or “DOGE,” Musk has been charged with slashing federal spending. He has deployed his DOGE employees, some reportedly surprisingly young, to systematically infiltrate government computer systems and gain access to sensitive data. On Monday, Musk gloated on his radically MAGA-fied platform X that his team “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
The USAID website went dark on Saturday, and the agency’s headquarters were closed on Monday—employees were told to work from home. On Tuesday night, a holding page for the website came online with a message announcing that as of 11:59pm today (February 7), “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.” According to Reuters, the Trump administration plans to keep only 294 of the 10,000 USAID staffers.
Opposition to sending money abroad is not new among the far-right, but presidential support for US foreign assistance is generally bipartisan, and this is the first time it has been so forcefully gutted. Trump and Musk have both repeatedly expressed hatred toward USAID, Musk recently calling it “a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America,” and spreading conspiratorial lies about the agency, including that it “funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.”
Dissolving USAID was also a focus of the extreme right-wing Project 2025 plan developed by Trump allies for his new administration. Trump claimed he had nothing to do with the plan on the campaign trail, but it very much appears that he’s been drawing from it since taking office.
The Trump administration has made it clear that it wants to instill its radically conservative ideology throughout all branches of the federal government. This means doing away with progressive policies and actions aimed at advancing human rights, social justice, and environmental protection.
The Trump/Musk attack on foreign aid means millions of the most vulnerable people will be cut off from life-saving aid. Not only will this cause widespread suffering and preventable deaths — experts warn it also means that authoritarian giants China and Russia will likely gain increasing influence in parts of the world formerly shaped by US support.
It is not yet clear what will happen next. Democrats argue that the Trump administration is acting illegally and that the government cannot refuse to spend money that Congress has directed it to spend, with some accusing Trump and Musk of launching the country into a constitutional crisis.
1) The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a coalition of the world’s wealthiest nations working to stimulate economic progress and world trade.
