AAA. USAID
1961
1961-09-01 USAID was created by John F. Kennedy with bipartisan support for humanitarian reasons and has since then saved hundreds-of-thousands of lives, provided miraculous aid, and has bonded the United States to other countries by making a wonderful impression.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/pl-480
2025 January
2025-01-20 The Trump administration froze funds to USAID. By March USAID was 83% gutted. By July 24, 2025 Trump signed the Rescissions Act of 2025 to claw back $8B in funding from USAID. Aside from foreign aid, dismantling USAID can negatively impact farm subsidies.
2025-01-24 The administration cut portions of PEPFAR funding which provided lifesaving treatment for pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, orphans, and vulnerable children. Reports linked the cuts to disruptions in care and child deaths.
https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html
2025 February
2025-02-03 Trump stated that USAID was “run by radical left lunatics” and claimed, “tremendous fraud”.
2025-02-03 Elon Musk joked online about feeding USAID “into the wood chipper.”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886307316804263979
2025-02-06 Trump alleged on Truth Social that “billions of dollars have been stolen at USAID”.
https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1887543203953275347
2025-02-11 During Oval Office remarks, Trump alleged “billions and billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse”.
2025-02-11 Some celebrated closure of USAID for its history of redirecting funds for American interests. For example, under Regan the emphasis was on private sector growth. In Afghanistan millions of dollars were spent on unsustainable projects. They often redirected funds to private US-owned clinics and schools.
https://www.pbs.org/video/haiti-in-crisis-1743539858/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-created-cuba-twitter-sow-unrest-reports-ap
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-secretly-built-cuban-twitter-but-why/
2025-02-18 Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson celebrated outside the shuttered USAID headquarters.
2025 March
2025-03-29 House Republicans posted an AI-generated celebration video mocking USAID’s collapse. In December 2025 reporters found that in Kenya where they relied on USAID mothers had to choose which of their kids to feed and pregnant women were so desperate for food they were eating mud.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/mar/09/john-oliver-trump-usaid
2025 July
2025-07-01 A UCLA Fielding research study showed that DOGE’s dismantling USAID will lead to more than 14M preventable deaths including more than 4M children under the age of 5
https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/gbd
2025-07-14 The Trump administration allowed USAID food stocks for starving children to expire and be incinerated. Members who were left in USAID reached out to the Trump administration to ask for release of food stocks intended to feed 30,000+ starving children. The administration ignored the requests for weeks, allowed the food stock to expire, then announced it would incinerate the food. It was roughly 500 metric tons of food they allowed to spoil then incinerated, rather than feed hungry children.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/07/usaid-emergency-food-incinerate-trump/683532/
2025 October
2025-10-25 PBS reported on Ugandan nurse Agnes Nambozo, who climbed a 1,000-foot ladder daily to provide vaccines and medical care. Following USAID cuts, she also assumed duties previously handled by other aid workers.
https://nurse.org/news/uganda-nurse-climbs-ladders-to-save-lives/
2025 November
2025-11-20 Reports indicated that the USAID shut down directly led to roughly 600,000 or more preventable deaths worldwide.
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x4ZHWjDcf4
https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/imo/media/doc/usaid_report.pdf
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5909940-deaths-ebola-trump-usaid-report/
2025 December
2025-03-29 House Republicans posted an AI-generated celebration video mocking USAID’s collapse. In December 2025 reporters found that in Kenya where they relied on USAID mothers had to choose which of their kids to feed and pregnant women were so desperate for food they were eating mud.
https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-food-program-starvation-children-deaths
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hundreds-of-thousands-of-deaths/
2026 January
2026-01-21 In a study, Trump’s decision to block USAID resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition.
https://www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?view=table&sort=title&order=asc
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jjpm7zv8o
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext
2026 February
2026-02-08 The New York Times reported that more than 2,000 health clinics worldwide had closed after USAID reductions. Other reports linked the cuts to preventable child deaths from malnutrition and illness.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/opinion/usaid-humanitarian-aid-america.html
https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/location/africa/democratic-republic-congo/
2026 March
2026-03-20 Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response is taking over USAID. That department will not be focusing on climate change measures and will selectively choose where to send aid. In a statement to Reuters one senior official said, “We are going to pick more carefully the stuff that we respond to. It’s not the United States’ responsibility to respond to every disaster, every crisis, especially when our adversaries or groups that hate the United States are at issue…”.
2026 June
2026-06-28 Musk posted “Exactly. And they cannot cite a single name of someone who died out of the “millions” they falsely claim have died. Not a single name!” about the Ebola outbreak. He later posted, “Deaths in Africa DECREASED after USAID funding was cut, because they’re no longer able to push for violent revolution to install leftist regimes!”.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2071366974043537458
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2071673460779041155
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/17/g-s1-133651/usaid-elon-musk-rubio-deaths
PAY WALL https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/opinion/usaid-elon-musk-doge.html