Reevalutating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid. It began with an Executive Order on January 20, 2025. Now, over a year since, the aid landscape has changed dramatically and the global consequences are ongoing. 

Most are familiar with the 2025 US cuts to foreign aid, both humanitarian and development. Most will also know of the resulting destruction of USAID and the dismemberment of the Department of State. What you might not have heard are the comments from people on both sides of the aisle saying, ‘Well, maybe this isn’t a bad thing?’

This order affected me personally: I worked in international development in Washington, DC, saw my colleagues and friends lose their jobs, negotiated as a part of my union leadership what little benefits we could for our peers, and witnessed the shuttering of programs that I had built and worked on for five years. I believed in my work, while acknowledging it was often flawed. In fact, prior to Trump’s attacks, I often questioned the efficacy and ethics of development work–as did many of my colleagues. But I believe that is why we should not have simply obliterated aid, and why I don’t buy into the narrative that we are now positioned to ‘build back better.’

Both humanitarian and development aid needed reform. Many of the claims — that projects were redundant or wasteful, that agencies failed to coordinate and collaborate effectively with their funding, that the sector often relied on the same consultants and partners — have their roots in reality. But, it’s important to go deeper and deconstruct the politicized narrative built by the Trump administration that overemphasizes these claims and blurs out the successes. 

Those who worked in international development will tell you about programs that distributed life-saving vaccines, provided clean water to millions, and gave women and girls the training and tools to thrive and be better equipped for political participation. They will also tell you that USAID has spent the majority of the last decade developing its approach to localizing development aid, ensuring local involvement, partnership, and ownership of programs, and that all aid funders, the United States in particular, have implemented increasingly rigorous standards and requirements for monitoring and evaluation. These were also not perfect and needed ongoing improvements, but they represented substantial steps taken to address issues of paternalism, inefficiencies, and waste in aid delivery. 

There are also claims that aid is coming back, and that that some programs will be reinstated or reinvisioned. Congress has passed FY26 aid appropriations and still seems bought into the need for aid as a policy and humanitarian tool, despite the president’s ongoing narrative. The bill includes over $50B in foreign affairs funding, which is about 16% lower than in FY25, but is nearly $20B above Trump’s budget request, which recommended a cut of almost 50%. It includes funds for atrocity prevention that the president proposed cutting, and would cover the US’ dues to the United Nations. And yet, the executive prerogative for spending remains unchecked, leaving the real possibility that many of these funds may be rescinded, withheld, or manipulated for political purposes. Congress does not have any direct avenues to hold the executive branch to spending these funds per the FY26 appropriations. In fact, there have been reports on further cuts by the administration to programs that had originally survived the 2025 stop work order and cancellation.

Beyond the executive branch’s likely continued policy to cut spending on aid programs, I am worried about a larger shift in global interaction away from established institutions and multilateral relationships and towards private interests and splashy announcements. 

Trump’s Board of Peace exemplifies the potential for new tracks for peacebuilding and development to be created in a way that does not incorporate Global South needs and only furthers the business interests of the  few. The Board’s lack of substantive Palestinian representation, inclusion of member states based on appointment and a ‘pay-to-play’ model, appointment of a number of businesspeople to the Executive Board in ill-veiled cronyism, and a lifelong position for Trump himself — regardless of his political future — mark this endeavor as distinct from past US policy and multi-lateralism. 

Similarly, the FY26 US foreign aid funding bill included one of the most emblematic American aid programs, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), but requires the Secretary of State to submit a plan to transition the program to partner states. This sounds like an ideal outcome, but without the ownership of USAID and under time-pressure from Trump, it is very possible that the plan will not be specific or attainable for partner states and likely will not be inclusive of their feedback. It is easy to imagine this leading to less success than previously, and the potential for the US to pull out of the transition if the country cannot sustain or afford its side of the deal. 

On the other hand, former USAID leadership has reinvisioned the Development Innovation Ventures program outside the government as an independent nonprofit. They will test whether a venture-style approach to aid can turn small pilots into large-scale impact even when not publicly funded. Maybe this will prove to be an effective way forward for previous and new aid programs. But how many programs like this will get funded and by whom? Small and medium NGOs are facing a funding crisis with foundations stretching to cover some of the gaps created by USAID and others. 

Finally, without any institution to fill the lacuna left by USAID, and with a barebones Department of State, there is simply not enough staff and resources to ensure that the aid that still exists is being used in an effective and meaningful way. Given that this is the case, there is certainly not the bandwidth to reimagine aid altogether. It is also hard to imagine that the same government that could not define Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) when making cuts to DEI programs and relied blindly on AI tools to select programs understands what changes actually need to be made to increase the effectiveness of aid. While the focus is often on US aid institutions as the former behemoth in the sector, other donor countries are more than following suit, with potentially long-lasting consequences. 

I share this all not to bring more doom and gloom to an already depressing worldview, but to underline that there is a serious problem with the US and other donors’ aid cuts. Despite some narratives, the evidence shows that the cuts were not made with the effort to create more efficiency and empower Global South communities, but rather with Trump’s populist base and private interests in mind. Communities across the world will face new challenges, and even death in extreme cases, due to lack of aid. While the current forecast does not inspire hope, it is important now that young communities that are entering into international policy and affairs think about how aid could come back, and how we might reconceptualize it to one day be a more powerful force for good.