Washington, 1 July 2025.- The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is officially declared non-existent this Tuesday, after more than six decades. The Trump administration ruled that it was not in the interests of the United States.
This decision comes the same day that an international study reveals that the collapse of US funding for international aid could result in more than 14 million more deaths by 2030 among the most vulnerable, including one third of children.
What remains of USAID will now be integrated into the US State Department, under the direction of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Mr Rubio said: "Aid programs abroad that align with government policies and serve American interests will be administered by the State Department, where they will be implemented with greater responsibility, strategy and efficiency." Moreover, he added that apart from creating, at the expense of the taxpayer, a global industrial complex of NGOs, USAID has not much to show since the end of the cold war."
Reactions rain as a result of this decision. In a farewell message to staff, former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as singer Bono, praised the work of USAID. The removal of USAID is « inexplicable » and « will remain like a huge mistake »Barack Obama said, while Bush was defending the PEPFAR programme against the AIDS he had set up.
Since his return to power in January, President Donald Trump has set out to dismantle the Institution, slashing massively in international aid and eliminating 83% of the funding of programs abroad by the US Development Agency, accused of wastage and spreading values contrary to US interests.
Donald Trump's freeze on aid caused shock and distress in the independent agency created under John F. Kennedy by an American Congress law in 1961, which managed an annual budget of $42.8 billion, accounting for 42 per cent of the world's humanitarian aid.
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