US foreign aid freeze sends shock waves around the world
January 31, 2025
"It was a surprise to us," said Roshan Pokhrel, Nepal's secretary of the Ministry of Health and Population. "We really did not expect all the programs to stop."
He told DW that the phone call had come early this week, announcing an end to all US-funded programs in Nepal.
"The programs in nutrition and in maternal health will certainly be affected. It's definitely a worrying sign to us," Pokhrel said.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending US development aid on his very first day in office. Funds have been frozen for 90 days while his administration reviews whether projects are "aligned" with US interests, making the country "safer, stronger and more prosperous."
Halt to Nepal's Vitamin A project
The Nepal National Vitamin A Program (NVAP) is just one of the projects affected. It involves tens of thousands of health workers who travel to the most remote parts of the country on the southern edge of the Himalayas to administer vitamin A capsules to more than 3 million children.
The US has been funding the campaign, which is estimated to have saved the lives of 45,000 children below the age of 5, since the 1990s.
Vitamin A deficiency can contribute to blindness, but also makes people more susceptible to diseases such as measles, malaria or diarrhea.
'America First'
Trump's "America First" agenda requires that only projects that can be proven to be making the US itself more secure and prosperous be funded in the future.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the previous administration under Joe Biden of spending money "like drunken sailors" and said that Trump would be a better manager of state funds.
"That’s what this pause is focused on: being good stewards of tax dollars," Leavitt said.
She also claimed that "there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza," providing no evidence. Fact checkers have expressed doubt about the assertion.
Military aid to Israel and Egypt not affected
"This is massive because the US is the world's largest donor of development aid," said political scientist Stephan Klingebiel from the German Institute of Development and Sustainability.
According to official US figures, its development aid amounted to around $68 billion in 2023 alone.
"If all of this literally comes to a standstill from one day to the next, it will affect people directly," Klingebiel said.
Programs affected by Trump's executive order include aid for refugees in northern Syria, prosthetics for war invalids in Ukraine and demining projects in Sudan.
State partners, aid organizations and other NGOs are horrified and confused, as it is currently unclear what projects will be affected in the long term. US courts have already called into question the legality of the Trump administration's freeze on foreign assistance, as yet to no avail.
From the outset, there were exceptions for military aid to Israel and Egypt. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also said his country is still receiving aid.
Emergency humanitarian food assistance was also not halted. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio approved a waiver for emergency humanitarian aid, exempting "life-saving humanitarian assistance" programs, including life-saving HIV treatment, from the freeze.
'It's a death sentence'
"We are in constant limbo," said Nozizwe Ntesang, an LGBTQ+ rights activist in Botswana who works with The Lesbians, Gays & Bisexuals of Botswana, LEGABIBO. "A predominant amount of our funding comes from the United States through PEPFAR and other agencies."
The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was launched by US President George W. Bush in 2003 and has since helped to save the lives of around 25 million people worldwide by providing them with antiretroviral drugs. Ntesang said that LEGABIBO usually distributed these drugs to up to 9,000 people a month.
"Today was the first time in years that there was nobody in the drop-in clinics," Ntesang said. "So there's a real health danger to them not being able to access treatment. Essentially, it's a death sentence."
She told DW that LEGABIBO had written to the Botswana Health Ministry and asked not only for solidarity, but also for the provision of emergency funds.
'New opportunities for China'
It's unlikely that governments in the world's poorer countries will be able to maintain all US-funded projects.
What about other countries, such as Germany, the second-largest donor of development aid after the US?
"Even if it had the money, it could not manage the logistics and take charge of the infrastructure in such a short [amount] of time to compensate for the whole thing," said Klingebiel. He predicted that in the long term China in particular would fill the gap.
"Countries such as China, Russia and others are very happy to move into places where the West is not so strong," he said. "We have often seen that on the African continent, but also elsewhere. Trump is creating new opportunities for China."
Klingebiel added that the result would be less US influence worldwide, as providing foreign aid was also a means of shaping the policies of other countries to serve one's own interests.
'Wake-up call'
Some viewed the freeze of US foreign aid as a chance.
"Let us be self-reliant," said the former Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, at a health conference in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa. "Why are you crying? It is not your government; it is not your country. He has no reason to give you anything. You don't pay taxes in America. This is a wake-up call to you to say: 'OK, what are we going to do to help ourselves?'"
"We definitely know that this is the US people's taxpayers' money," said Pokhrel from the Nepali Health Ministry. "We know that it's very hard-earned money. But we in third world countries like Nepal definitely would like to continue utilizing these resources properly."
He expressed hope that the US-funded projects in his country would resume after 90 days. This, he said, would help the world and thus the US.
This article was originally written in German.