The Trump administration’s cancellation of $60 billion in U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contracts is already unraveling significant programs and caused profound harm to many of the world’s most vulnerable people, humanitarian officials tell NBC News.
The pace of change has jumped since Wednesday, when the White House unveiled plans to cut more than 90% of contracts held by USAID, which has been the world’s largest single aid provider for decades. In January, an official freeze on foreign aid was cast as part of a temporary review.
The recently announced cuts essentially eliminate most U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad and come amid the dramatic contraction of government spending carried out under the aegis of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
President Donald Trump and Musk allege that USAID promotes a liberal agenda and wastes money.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Peter Marocco, the deputy administrator-designate at USAID, “have determined your award is not aligned with Agency priorities and made a determination that continuing this program is not in the national interest,” according to a copy of a termination notice obtained by NBC News that was sent to companies with USAID contracts Wednesday.
“There seems to be no pattern to it” other than shutting down U.S. foreign aid, one humanitarian official said.
USAID provided assistance to around 130 countries in fiscal year 2023. The top 10 recipients of aid in that year were Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan and Syria.
A spokesperson for the United Nations International Organization for Migration told NBC News that the cuts directly affect the organization’s “ability to support some of the world’s most vulnerable people.”
The Trump administration is fighting two lawsuits challenging the dissolution of USAID and the subsequent freeze on foreign aid. One of those suits has reached the Supreme Court, with the court on Wednesday temporarily pausing a lower court order that required the administration to release frozen foreign aid funding by midnight Wednesday.
There will likely be more lawsuits against the administration as a result of the termination notices, with organizations on the hook for work that’s already been done, and potentially costs to wind down these programs, while the USAID payment system remains shut down.