O n a bitter Sunday morning in Kherson, Ukraine, the firewood deliveries stopped. The city, already plunged into darkness by recent Russian shelling, grew colder by the hour. In Kyiv, veterans and their families, desperate for support, called a crisis hotline only to be met with answering machines. Meanwhile, 4,000 kilometres south, in Egypt, struggling communities braced for longer delays in critical health care services. Just beyond, in Sudan, an already dire food security crisis deepened as vital supplies sat untouched in warehouses at the port. The thread binding these crises together? A single decision: the US Agency for International Development’s abrupt suspension of nearly all its programs.

What began on January 20 as a “90-day pause” on “new obligations and disbursements” quickly took a very different shape. Issued by President Donald Trump, the freeze reached deep into USAID’s portfolio, halting everything from humanitarian aid to long-term development projects. Staff were instructed to “support the President in achieving his vision” of an “America first” foreign policy, a directive backed by the threat of disciplinary action for those who failed to fall in line. The order imposed a gag rule, barring USAID employees from communicating outside the agency. This wasn’t just a funding decision. It was a transformation of America’s role in the world, executed not through legislation or public debate but through a cascade of memos designed to lock the bureaucracy into compliance.

As the world’s largest provider of foreign aid, the US channels most of its civilian funding through USAID. More than 60 percent of the $71.9 billion (US) allocated to foreign assistance in 2023 was handled by the agency. Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, USAID provides emergency relief to disaster-stricken areas and promotes development work in the Global South. These programs cost the American people less than 1 percent of their annual budget but can be life changing for recipients. From mobile health units for internally displaced people in Afghanistan to disaster-warning systems for the disabled in the Philippines, USAID’s reach cannot be overstated.

“This could not have come at a worse time,” reflects Marina Kobzeva, a lifelong aid worker and director of programmes and partnerships at MapAction, a volunteer organization that helps response teams reach affected areas through rapid mapping and data collection. “Not only is the need for humanitarian assistance growing at an exponential rate but this freeze is also coming at a time where we are losing more aid workers than ever,” she says, referring to the record-breaking number of front-line personnel killed in 2024, many of whom were targeted in conflict zones like Gaza, Sudan, and South Sudan. Loss of funding does not make aid work in crisis zones any safer.

“There are also forgotten crises, like the famine in Yemen, and emerging crises, like the aggression in eastern Congo, that don’t benefit from much media attention and are heavily reliant on the USAID,” says Kobzeva, stressing that a sudden cut-off could have devastating consequences for these regions.

Yuriy Boyechko, chief executive officer and founder of Hope for Ukraine, a humanitarian non-governmental organization, underscores USAID’s vital role. “While we do not receive USAID funding ourselves,” he says, “most of the organizations on the ground that disperse the food kits we provide to over 1,500 families and deliver our educational programs are reliant on it.”

Veteran Hub, another Ukrainian NGO, which helps veterans settling back into civilian life, has had to halt its work. “Two-thirds of our services were frozen on January 25 following the State Department’s order,” co-founder and board head Ivona Kostyna tells The Walrus. “We receive over 1,300 calls on our helpline each month, and we know for certain that we missed 240 calls in the week following the freeze,” says Kostyna.

Not all countries that receive assistance are at war, but many still face ongoing emergencies. As the CEO of an Egyptian USAID subcontractor working on “very critical improvements” to the country’s........

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