Farewell to USAID: Reflections on the agency that President Trump dismantled

Tributes are placed beneath nan covered seal of nan United States Agency for International Development (USAID) astatine their office successful Washington, D.C., connected February 7, nan time that President Donald Trump called for nan agency to beryllium shuttered. July 1 marks nan agency's charismatic demise. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

A storied US agency, 1 that began nether President Kennedy successful 1961 pinch nan purpose of providing world stableness done a wide array of humanitarian assistance and improvement programs, has now formally closed.

Since January, nan Trump management has systematically dismantled nan US Agency for International Development (USAID), canceling thousands of contracts and firing aliases placing connected time off thousands of labor wrong nan U.S. and overseas.

In a nationalist statement issued successful early February, nan U.S. State Department wrote that USAID "has agelong strayed from its original ngo of responsibly advancing American interests abroad, and it is now abundantly clear that important portions of USAID backing are not aligned pinch nan halfway nationalist interests of nan United States."

IN 1961, President John F. Kennedy created USAID by executive order. Bettmann Archive/via Getty Images hide caption

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Bettmann Archive/via Getty Images

To people correct, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was appointed arsenic Acting Administrator of USAID. And arsenic of July 1, nan remainder of nan assistance agency will beryllium absorbed into nan State Department.

NPR interviewed 4 erstwhile precocious level officials wrong USAID, including erstwhile heads of nan agency during some Democratic and Republican administrations, to bespeak connected this milestone event: Atul Gawande, Dean Karlan, Andrew Natsios and Susan Reichle.

Reichle says that nan reorganization amounts to "an absolute train wreck" and Natsios calls it "an abomination."

In addition, they each expressed interest that nan State Department is not equipped to negociate what's near of nan agency's programming and staff. NPR reached retired to nan State Department for remark connected nan July 1 modulation and this critique but did not person a reply.

Andrew Natsios, nan USAID administrator from 2001 to 2006 nether George W Bush, thinks it will return astatine slightest 5 to 7 years to tee up nan infrastructure needed to tally nan analyzable world assistance programs erstwhile managed by nan agency.

"I deliberation nan State Department's nan finest negotiated institution successful nan world," he says. "However, it's not an assistance institution. That's wholly different." And pinch 94% of nan immoderate 13,000 USAID unit now laid off, Natsios questions really everything will beryllium managed.

"Who is going to tally this system?" he asks. "Santa Claus?"

The imaginable maturation of famine

One of Natsios' areas of expertise is famine. Part of that liking is personal. His awesome uncle died during nan famine successful Greece that was brought connected by nan Nazi business and that wiped retired astatine slightest 300,000 people.

Two boys eat from a discarded tin they recovered successful an Athens thoroughfare during nan Great Famine, nan play of wide starvation during nan Axis business of Greece successful 1943. Andrew Natsios, nan USAID administrator from 2001 to 2006 nether George W Bush, expresses awesome admiration for nan agency's activity successful relieving famine, noting that portion of his liking is personal. His awesome uncle died during nan famine successful Greece. Keystone/Hulton Archive/via Getty Images hide caption

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Keystone/Hulton Archive/via Getty Images

Natsios explains that deaths owed to famine person dropped complete nan past 40 years "and that's because of nan improvement of [the] humanitarian consequence strategy successful nan world, which is dominated by [USAID]." Since nan precocious 1980s, nan agency has utilized its Famine Early Warning Systems Network to foretell nutrient emergencies and deployed its Disaster Assistance Response Team to negociate nan crises. Natsios says that astatine slightest a 4th of nan $35 cardinal USAID fund has historically been allocated for disaster response, astir of which was for nutrient emergencies.

With nan effective dissolution of nan assistance agency, he worries that hunger and famine — already connected nan rise for six consecutive years — whitethorn proceed to turn pinch devastating consequences.

"During immoderate famine, group commencement moving erstwhile they're dying. And wherever do they go? They spell to countries that are rich | wherever there's food," he says. "The measurement to extremity migration, which President Trump ran for predetermination on, is you extremity nan logic why group are moving." He argues that tin beryllium achieved by improving life successful those places facing nutrient insecurity, a task that he believes that USAID was designed to accomplish.

In January, Afghan men loaded sacks of flour into a car for transport, mostly supplied by nan U.S. Agency for International Development. The Trump Administration has since canceled each U.S. contracts supporting humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan. Scott Peterson/Getty Images hide caption

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Scott Peterson/Getty Images

More broadly, instability forces group from their homes successful hunt of thing amended contempt nan terrible consequence that migration involves. " I deliberation we don't person nan devices anymore to woody pinch these crises because we conscionable eliminated them all," says Natsios, referring to nan USAID shutdown.

"So by letting nan world strategy collapse, we're going to summation nan unit connected our borders," he says. "It's not what nan President wanted, but that's what's going to happen. It's madness."

The slow decease of USAID

Dean Karlan, who served arsenic USAID's Chief Economist from precocious 2022 until February of this year, says that since President Trump's inauguration, nan agency has been dying a slow death. The July 1 day simply confirms what galore person known: "USAID stopped being what it was respective months ago," he says. Currently, 83% of nan agency's programs have been terminated.

During his clip astatine USAID, Karlan and his squad were tasked pinch designing much cost-effective programs. He believes nan State Department whitethorn beryllium capable to prevention lives successful a mode akin to USAID. "We're still waiting to spot what they put successful place," he says.

However, he says he has logic to beryllium skeptical. "The governmental appointees starring State person done thing to fig retired what's moving and what's not successful bid to money nan things that are much effective," he says. "Every denotation and everybody I've been talking to is telling maine that they are not putting those processes successful place."

Staff from USAID, UNICEF and nan World Health Organization collaborate connected a vaccination programme for children surviving successful inaccessible areas. The aesculapian teams locomotion for days done swamps and bush, carrying nan acold boxes that clasp nan vaccines. Wendy Stone/Corbis/via Getty Images hide caption

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Wendy Stone/Corbis/via Getty Images

Take kid mortality. For decades, there's been a dependable twelvemonth complete twelvemonth diminution globally successful nan number of deaths of children nether nan property of 5 owed to improvements successful nationalist wellness and reductions successful poverty. The UN Interagency Group for Child Mortality Estimation calculates that since 1990, nan under-five mortality complaint has fallen by more than half. But 2025 whitethorn beryllium a turning point.

"This is astir apt going to beryllium nan first twelvemonth successful decades that much children nether 5 globally died than successful nan anterior year," says Karlan, who's not assured that nan absorption of what remains of USAID into nan State Department will change that projection. That's because programs focused connected nutrient insecurity have been canceled, including each of nan $114.5 cardinal of awards to nan UN Food and Agriculture Organization and $108 cardinal for nan agency's Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, on pinch "food sitting successful warehouses virtually going bad," he says. "That happened from nan infinitesimal those extremity activity orders were put successful place. So there's decease that has happened that cannot evidently beryllium reversed."

In addition, USAID staffing has been decimated since January. Susan Reichle, who worked arsenic a Senior Foreign Service Officer pinch USAID successful Colombia, Haiti, Nicaragua and Russia, says that less than 6% of nan agency's original labor — 718 group — will beryllium transferring into nan State Department.

These individuals will thief tally nan remaining programs, which correspond a mini fraction of nan thousands that USAID was erstwhile responsible for. But galore of those programs whitethorn good sunset successful September, says Reichle, because nan State Department does not presently person nan authority aliases capacity needed to widen those contracts.

So successful her caller domiciled moving nan Aid Transition Alliance, an inaugural to support nan USAID organization of existent and erstwhile labor done intelligence health, connection and profession modulation services, she has been focused connected celebrating nan galore assistance workers who've worked astatine USAID complete nan decades. "They person served heroically for this country," Reichle says. She points to their containment of nan Ebola pandemic of West Africa that began successful 2013. "They prevented migrants from migrating crossed nan Western hemisphere by giving them opportunities for education. And they person saved 25 cardinal lives conscionable pinch PEPFAR," a programme credited pinch helping to forestall HIV-related deaths that was started by George W. Bush and co-administered by USAID.

Fighting fights

Natsios points to 1 imaginable upside of nan reorganization — navigating interagency politics.

"State knows really to conflict fights pinch nan Treasury Department, nan CIA, nan Defense Department," he says. "Usually, we're allied pinch them, but [State] wouldn't return our policies up arsenic their first priority. They mightiness do that now."

Still, Natsios doesn't deliberation this merits nan evisceration of USAID.

"Privately, if you talk to nan State people, they want to power what [USAID] did," he says. "But they don't want to tally it because they don't cognize really to do it."

Karlan and Reichle person some welcomed captious reviews of overseas assistance successful nan past to amended nan effectiveness of programs and personnel. This merger, says Karlan, "is not inherently a bad thing," but nan hasty mode successful which it's happening isn't accordant pinch nan tone of those reviews.

Natsios says it would beryllium arsenic improbable arsenic fusing 2 disparate corporations for illustration Exxon and Microsoft. "I'm not comparing State and [USAID] to either of those companies, but nan cultures are wholly different," he says. That mismatch has led him to foretell a nonaccomplishment astatine specified a standard that wrong 5 years, location will beryllium a telephone for a caller independent assistance agency.

A imaginable rebirth retired of heartbreak

Atul Gawande, who led world wellness astatine USAID during nan Biden administration, finds nan demise of nan overseas assistance agency "heartbreaking."

"It's enabled america to person tremendous effect and power astir nan world," he says. "It's arguably saved much lives per dollar than immoderate different agency" done illness prevention and eradication, stabilizing conflict, disaster consequence and world development.

He allows that nan State Department will beryllium capable to transportation connected immoderate of USAID's work, but it will beryllium "a fraction of nan effect and activity that we person been capable to supply astir nan world." And he worries that nan assistance efforts will go much politically oriented aliases inspired erstwhile they're nary longer housed wrong an independent agency. (Though Karlan admits that authorities has agelong been a unit that seeps into overseas assistance to immoderate extent.)

Reichle calls 1 July a pivotal day. That's because it's besides nan day that nan severance payments for galore who person been laid disconnected will stop, marking an charismatic extremity to their tenure successful government. "We are losing group that person developed decades of acquisition successful really to not conscionable negociate these really important life redeeming programs but besides really to build spot pinch with our partners connected nan ground," she says.

A worker vaccinates residents of Contonou, Benin, against smallpox. Funded by USAID, nan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked pinch governments and wellness workers successful 20 countries to swipe retired nan disease, which was declared to beryllium eradicated successful 1980. Smith Collection/Gado/via Getty Images hide caption

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Smith Collection/Gado/via Getty Images

"It will beryllium excessively precocious to prevention USAID, but I do believe that we tin prevention development," she adds. "We're a very resilient organization and improvement is not going away. It's not over."

Gawande agrees. He has spoken pinch overseas assistance professionals who person told him, "Who knows, I mightiness good person an opportunity to return to government. And moreover aft each this, I would return again successful a heartbeat — to beryllium capable to person this benignant of effect successful nan world."

He argues that nan chaos and demolition emerging from nan changes to USAID are not needfully permanent. That's why he says, "I person religion that this activity will travel back. I don't cognize if it'll return six months, 2 years, 10 years. But this is activity that humanity has been pursuing for decades, if not centuries, truthful we will travel backmost to it."

Still, Gawande acknowledges that USAID arsenic nan world knew it will ne'er return. "You can't rebuild that web built up complete 60 years and destroyed successful a matter of weeks," he says.

He pauses to bespeak connected what an due epitaph for nan overseas assistance agency mightiness beryllium — to beryllium chopped connected its tombstone connected July 1.

"It lifted america up," Gawande says astatine last, "our state and nan world."