On the first day of his second term, President Trump issued an executive order suspending all foreign aid expenditures, except for those providing emergency and military assistance. On March 10, the administration cancelled 83 percent of the programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

USAID, Trump declared, had been “run by a bunch of radical lunatics.” Elon Musk opined that the agency was “a criminal organization.” Social media outlets spread false allegations that USAID had spent $60 million on condoms for South Africa. On May 21, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “No one has died because of USAID.” Lawmakers presented him with credible evidence that he was wrong.

By the middle of the year, 94 percent of USAID’s 4,500 employees, many of them living overseas, had been laid off. As of July 1, Rubio announced, “USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance.” The State Department would only implement existing and new foreign aid programs if they advanced the administration’s “America First” agenda by privileging “trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, investment over assistance.”

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