‘Even the programs to count the dead are cut’: Trump admin cancels 5,800 contracts for lifesaving programs worldwide
The Trump administration sent out a wave of emails abruptly canceling funding for about 5,800 programs worldwide, many of which are lifesaving, including treatment/prevention of polio, malaria, and HIV, as well as projects that supplied water sources or shelters for victims of rape and domestic violence.
The cancellations came after Donald Trump froze all foreign federal aid as he, Elon Musk, and DOGE reviewed programs and funds. While reviews from new administrations are customary, it is unusual to freeze lifesaving programs during such a review. The stop-work order issued for programs like PEPFAR and USAID employees has cost lives and sparked chaos around the world as hospitals were abruptly shut down, food aid shipments sat stagnant, and HIV treatments paused, threatening a global resurgence. Once the freeze was instigated, many suspected it spelled the end of these programs, especially as Trump and Musk continue their extreme cost-cutting campaign. What little hope remained that these programs’ funding would resume has been crushed as the Trump administration formally began canceling thousands of programs, even those originally exempt from the freeze because of their lifesaving nature.
Trump cancels funding for thousands of lifesaving programs
As reported by The New York Times, the State Department under Secretary Marco Rubio officially began canceling programs on February 25. Across the world, in refugee camps, clinics, and shelters, employees providing lifesaving aid received brief, cold emails informing them their programs were cut. The first line in the email read, “This award is being terminated for convenience and the interest of the U.S. government.” When the email waves ended, an estimated 5,800 programs funded by USAID had been unceremoniously cut.
With no explanation other than “convenience,” the U.S. ended contracts for disease prevention, treatment, and response and programs tasked with providing food, water, shelter, prenatal, and health services to people worldwide. Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, noted that they won’t even be able to tell how many people die from these canceled contracts because “even the programs to count the dead are cut.”
According to the Associated Press, these 5,800 programs accounted for 90% of USAID’s foreign contracts. Among the cut programs is a $131 million grant to fund UNICEF’s polio immunization program, a $90 million contract with Chemonics for malaria treatment and protection for 53 million people, a project in the Democratic Republic of Congo that provided the sole source of water for 250,000 people in a displacement camp, HIV projects by Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation that serviced hundreds of thousands of people, a program providing shelters to 33,000 South African female victims of rape and domestic violence, and a program servicing 3.9 million children and 5.7 million women in Nepal with pre-and postnatal health services. An additional 4,100 State Department foreign aid programs were also cut.
The rapid, mass cancellation of projects may have been an attempt to get around a court order demanding Trump temporarily lift his month-long freeze on federal aid. The administration’s sudden claim that their review completion coincided with the court order has raised concerns about whether any meaningful review occurred before Trump abruptly ended lifesaving services worldwide. It’s also important to remind Americans that USAID accounted for just 1% of the federal budget. The richest men in the world think the lives lost by the cutting of this 1% is worthwhile so they can make room for tax breaks for billionaires.
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