The Trump administration is intent on dismantling the US Agency for International Development, which delivers food, medicine, and other humanitarian aid to the world's poorest. The stop-work order on USAID, which is now under the purview of Marco Rubio's State Department, immediately halted the agency's disbursement of foreign aid for 90 days, and Trump's team is in the process of stripping the workforce down to skeleton staff. "To be clear, there is no such thing as a temporary pause," ex-USAID official Michael Schiffer wrote recently for Just Security. "When an NGO, a small business, or an American company that receives US government funding to implement US foreign assistance is told to stop work, even for 90 days, that means people are fired, expertise is lost, and programs are shut down." More on what the New Yorker calls the "chaotic attempt" to shutter the agency:
- Halt to clinical trials: The New York Times delves into the "thousands" of people left stranded with experimental drugs and devices in their bodies, with no monitoring or follow-up care. "It's unethical to test anything in humans without taking it to the full completion of studies," one malaria researcher says. The Times notes "it is difficult to know the total number of trials shut down, or how many people are affected, because the swift demolition of USAID ... has erased the public record."
- 'Tectonic' effect: Science notes the overall blow to global research. The impact is "tectonic ... and that's an understatement," says Glenda Gray, chief scientific officer at the South African Medical Research Council.
- American farmers: Overseas recipients aren't the only ones who will be adversely affected by USAID's effective shutdown: The Washington Post reports that US farms and businesses that sold goods and services to USAID will also suffer, possibly losing out on billions of dollars.
- Melania/Ivanka: Though President Trump has called USAID a "tremendous fraud," ABC News notes that Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump have previously worked with the organization. "We care ... and I've partnered and am working with USAID," the first lady has said of the "successful" USAID programs she witnessed during a 2018 trip to Africa. Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, led the Women's Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, with $50 million distributed by USAID to help women in developing countries, launched by her father in 2019.
(
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof
has some thoughts on the "sickening" attempts to take USAID down.)
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