The Trump administration has frozen foreign aid and killed USAID programs that administer humanitarian assistance across the world. We break down what this means for global stability in a video collaboration between Politico and Business Insider.
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00:00The Trump administration has frozen foreign aid, disrupting programs around the world
00:05that dealt with everything from emergency food assistance to removing landmines.
00:10What does this mean for global stability and America's influence around the world?
00:14The U.S. Agency for International Development manages more than $40 billion a year in foreign
00:20assistance.
00:21It has programs in more than 120 countries around the world.
00:25The money goes toward everything from helping refugees to sending tents to places like Ukraine.
00:33It's a massive amount of work that also touches on promoting educational systems and good
00:38governance in various parts of the world.
00:40A huge amount of U.S. foreign assistance goes toward promoting global health.
00:45And that covers everything from nets, so to prevent malaria, to vaccinations against measles
00:52and polio, to also trying to stop the rise of AIDS in African countries.
00:59People who lose this funding are going to become more susceptible to starvation, to
01:05disease, and possibly to extremist ideology.
01:10This is the type of thing where if you lose educational services and you have young people
01:15without a school to go to, then they're going to turn to activities that could fuel crime.
01:20People are already literally dying because the U.S. has frozen its assistance.
01:26Now, it is important to remember that the State Department has issued waivers for what
01:31they're calling core life-saving material.
01:34This includes medicine and food and things like that, but they haven't really defined
01:38this very well.
01:39And so there's a lot of organizations that don't know what qualifies for these waivers.
01:44How does a weekend U.S. aid affect the United States?
01:47Much of the money that the United States spends on foreign assistance actually is spent
01:51inside the United States.
01:53For instance, the government purchases a tremendous amount of grains and other types of foods
02:00from farmers, and it uses that food and ships it over to feed hungry and starving people
02:07overseas.
02:08Because of this foreign aid freeze, those food stocks are just sitting there, not being
02:13used.
02:14And many farmers are not getting the money that they were promised for this.
02:17We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe even billions over time.
02:21Many healthcare companies, such as Pfizer and Abbott, receive money from U.S. aid to
02:26provide medicines and other materials that can go help people around the world.
02:31So when their contracts are not fulfilled, this hurts them and it could hurt the U.S.
02:36economy.
02:37How could job cuts affect the aid network?
02:39Many of the people who work directly for U.S. aid carry out core functions.
02:44They're the connectors.
02:46They're the ones who can push the buttons to get the funding out the door.
02:49They're the ones who are the managers, who know how to write the contracts, who know
02:54how to check to see if the money is being spent properly.
02:57And now most of these people have been put on leave or have been fired.
03:01And so it's sort of like ripping out the heart of much of the aid network around the world.
03:09And the U.S. aid cuts affect other sectors as well.
03:13U.S. aid works a great deal with private contractors.
03:16And so many organizations that work with U.S. aid have had to lay off their people as well.
03:21There's a reverberation.
03:23And ultimately, at the end of the day, tens of thousands of jobs could get lost because
03:27of what's happened.
03:29How does U.S. aid's contributions compare to that of other countries?
03:33Without U.S. assistance, other countries, international organizations, NGOs, they're
03:38going to have to find other sources of money, or they're going to have to find ways to network
03:44and coordinate without the U.S. there.
03:46And this is really hard, because in a lot of ways, it's like you have a body without
03:50a spine.
03:51Some of those countries might be in Europe.
03:53Places like Norway are big aid funders as well.
03:57Many also believe that China could fill these gaps.
04:01And that is a concern for many U.S. foreign policy observers, because they think that
04:07this would make China a more powerful force in the future.
04:10Where are you, Congress?
04:12Speak up!
04:13Do your job!
04:14But overall, the challenge here is that if the U.S. leaves a vacuum and then tries to
04:22go back to fill it, it's going to have to do even more work than it did before.
04:28It's very easy to destroy these networks.
04:31It takes a long time to rebuild them.
04:34And in that amount of time, lives are at stake.