Suspension of foreign aid costs lives but does not upset voters.

On the day he took office, President Trump declared that U.S. foreign aid is “not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values,” and ordered a 90-day suspension of its delivery pending review of all programs.

In February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency put nearly all 4,700 U.S. Agency for International Development on paid administrative leave and then terminated 1,600 of them. These staff cuts have made it impossible for USAID to distribute humanitarian aid around the world.

As a result, 60,000 tons of food valued at $98 million that could have fed 3.5 million people for a month sits in warehouses, some of it in danger of spoiling. According to one tracking model, 300,000 preventable deaths have occurred as result of the suspension of humanitarian aid, 200,000 of them children, many of whom died from malnutrition, diarrhea and pneumonia.

Many of the deaths resulted from freezing funds for a single program, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. Since its creation under Republican President George W. Bush in 2003, treatment provided by PEPAR has saved the lives of an estimated 26 million people in 55 countries and allowed 7.8 million babies to be born HIV free.

According to the relief organization Oxfam, if funding ends, 23 million children could lose access to education, 95 million people would not receive basic healthcare and 3 million people per year would die of preventable causes.

Undeterred by the human........

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