Trump Administration Cuts Lifesaving Aid to Seven African Nations
A year after the Trump administration began dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), it is now enacting further significant cuts to foreign assistance. This latest round targets programs previously considered essential, having been judged as lifesaving during earlier reviews.
According to an internal State Department email obtained by The Atlantic, the administration intends to end all current humanitarian funding to seven African nations as part of a “responsible exit.” The affected countries are Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. Funding in nine other nations will be redirected. Aid programs in all of these countries were slated for renewal through the end of September but will instead be allowed to expire, despite each being classified as lifesaving by the administration’s own standards.
The administration had already terminated aid packages to Afghanistan and Yemen, citing concerns that terrorist groups were diverting resources. The February 12th email to officials in the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs offers no such justification for cutting aid to the seven African nations. Instead, it states that these projects are being canceled because “there is no strong nexus between the humanitarian response and U.S. National interests.” The nine countries eligible for redirected funding are Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, South Sudan, and Sudan.
A State Department spokesperson stated in an email that “as USAID winds down, the State Department is responsibly moving programming onto new mechanisms” with “longer periods of performance and updated award and oversight terms.” The department has begun signing health-financing agreements with some African governments – including Cameroon and Malawi, as well as five of the nine countries eligible for redirected funding – that will take effect later this year. These agreements focus on strengthening health systems and containing infectious diseases but do not directly address hunger or displacement crises.
The State Department’s internal email notes that aid projects in the nine eligible countries may receive U.S. Assistance through a United Nations program. However, aid groups in at least one of those countries have already lost their U.S. Funding, and the details of any additional support remain unclear. The State Department spokesperson offered no further specifics when asked.
This latest aid purge follows an “America First” approach to foreign aid, where humanitarian projects are selected based on potential returns to the U.S., rather than solely on need. Across the seven countries losing U.S. Aid, at least 6.2 million people are facing “extreme or catastrophic conditions,” according to the UN, but offer little in return for assistance. In some cases, the State Department has restored or offered aid in exchange for mineral rights or agreements to accept U.S. Deportees.
The email also confirms the U.S. Will no longer allow American taxpayer dollars to flow to these seven countries through the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Previously, the U.S. Contributed significantly to the UN’s global humanitarian pool, trusting OCHA to allocate the funds. However, in December, a senior State Department official announced that U.S. Contributions would only be spent in an initial list of 17 countries, which did not include the seven now facing complete aid termination. (One more country has since been added to the list.) The initial contribution announced was $2 billion for 2026, significantly less than typical U.S. Contributions.
The State Department spokesperson described OCHA’s pooled funding as “a gold standard in flexible humanitarian funding.” However, two senior humanitarian-aid experts and one State Department employee—all speaking anonymously—said the December announcement blindsided State Department officials, embassy heads, and aid groups.
The nine other countries named in the State Department email appear to be included in the reworked partnership with OCHA. The email states that lifesaving awards in those places will be ended, for reasons not explained. (Ethiopia, Congo, and Kenya will benefit from Food for Peace, a program formerly part of USAID but now run by the Department of Agriculture.) Aid received through OCHA will come with new restrictions and monitoring requirements. Guidance from OCHA states that any American contributions must be spent within six months of being donated. According to two humanitarian experts, one based in South Sudan and the other in Washington, details on how and when funds will be distributed remain hazy.
Since the December announcement, “the legal work of formulating formal awards for each recipient country has been taken forward rapidly,” said an OCHA spokesperson. The spokesperson defended the six-month deadline, writing that, due to reduced contributions from major countries, “it is critical that these funds are translated swiftly into life-saving action for people who urgently need assistance and protection.”
The programs being phased out this year were already notable for their continued existence. Last year, the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, helped purge 83 percent of American foreign aid. Many more awards were canceled during a review by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. The administration’s stated aim was to eliminate wasteful awards while preserving work deemed lifesaving.
The administration’s definition of lifesaving was strict. Funding for programs fighting tuberculosis and providing food to those chronically hungry, but not yet starving, has been canceled. Stabilization centers providing inpatient treatment to severely malnourished children have generally been spared. Each canceled award represents a previous instance where federal workers convinced Trump appointees that the money would help meet the most basic survival needs of people fleeing war, disease outbreaks, or starvation, according to a former senior State Department official.
Administration representatives have repeatedly insisted that lifesaving aid was being preserved. Musk posted on X that “No one has died as result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding. No one.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has similarly claimed that reports of deaths linked to USAID cuts were false, promising last spring that “no children are dying on my watch.” However, reports of deaths linked to the cuts continue to emerge.
Conditions in some of the affected countries are already dire. Somalia, which will soon receive no American humanitarian funding, is undergoing a severe drought. Analysts for the federal government report that the hunger crisis could deteriorate into famine by this summer. Hundreds of health and nutrition centers in Somalia have shut down after last year’s cuts, according to Doctors Without Borders. Deaths among severely malnourished children under 5 have increased by 44 percent at a Doctors Without Borders-supported regional hospital, according to a communications manager for the organization.
Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of the nonprofit Alight, said her organization will have to close more than a dozen health facilities in Somalia in the next week, leaving as many as 200,000 people without healthcare. State Department officials had expressed optimism about renewed funding for Alight’s work in Sudan, but the grant was canceled last month. Alight has run out of U.S. Funding and has received no confirmation of OCHA funds. The organization has been forced to pull out of three refugee camps in Sudan, a country Trump described as “the most violent place on Earth” and facing a humanitarian crisis. Despite the administration maintaining that genocide and famine are taking place there, the humanitarian effort remains severely underfunded.
An Alight worker described breaking the news of the closures to people in displacement camps in Sudan, reporting that many arrived wounded and now face a three-hour drive through a war zone to reach the nearest health facility. Alight no longer has the funds to rent vehicles for transport.
