The dismantling of USAID — along with parallel cuts by European donors that have driven Western assistance to its lowest level since 2016 — has left fragile states without a development model, writes Eghosa E. Osaghae, Director General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. 

ProPublica reports that as the Trump administration terminates traditional aid programs deemed "not aligned with American interests," the State Department is redirecting congressionally mandated foreign aid dollars toward ideological causes, including a proposed $1 million grant to study crime against white Afrikaners and $5 million for a British free-speech group.

Citing polling showing 54% of Americans favor foreign aid and eight in 10 prefer reform over elimination, David Beasley and Ben Cardin argue the sector must acknowledge its shortcomings, better connect aid to U.S. interests, and rebuild bipartisan support.

Writing for the Center for Global Development, former chief economists of the U.S. and U.K. aid agencies Rachel Glennerster and Dean Karlan argue that with U.S. and other donor budgets sharply reduced, remaining aid should be radically simplified — concentrating on a handful of rigorously proven, high-impact interventions.

At a Health Journalism 2026 panel, veteran reporters warned that as sweeping USAID cuts reshape global health programs, many of the resulting humanitarian stories may go unreported — and American audiences may never realize what they're missing. 

After dismantling USAID, the Trump administration is offering African governments hundreds of millions in bilateral health funding — but with conditions attached, including cost-sharing requirements and demands for access to patient data and pathogen samples. The BBC reports that while 32 countries have signed the health MOUs, Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia have refused over sovereignty concerns. 

In an interview with NPR marking a year since USAID's official shutdown, former administrator Samantha Power argues the deepest damage won't register for generations, but points to the Republican-led Congress's $50 billion foreign assistance bill as evidence USAID could someday be reconstituted.

In a Semafor op-ed, former Liberian minister W. Gyude Moore argues that the abrupt dismantling of USAID has caused real humanitarian harm and damaged America's standing in Africa, but the deeper failure it exposes is African governments' inability to fund essential services on their own.

Jeremy Lewin — who oversaw the gutting of USAID through DOGE before becoming undersecretary of State for foreign assistance — has had his planned move to the National Security Council paused after Laura Loomer publicized his past ties to Democrats, Politico reports.

Marking the U.S. 250th anniversary, CSIS argues that the dismantling of USAID and a historic global decline in development assistance have exposed long-standing failures to define what U.S. development policy is for and to communicate its value to Americans.

In the wake of USAID's dismantling and the mass termination of aid awards, this Center for Global Development analysis argues that U.S. foreign assistance remains essential to national security and lays out six reform principles for rebuilding a more effective and durable system. 

A year after the Trump administration dismantled USAID and slashed U.S. foreign aid disbursements from $72 billion to $47 billion, a Rockefeller Foundation poll finds most Americans — including much of Trump's MAGA base — still support foreign aid, with backing rising from 54% to 70% once voters learn it made up about 1% of the federal budget before 2025.

Two former Trump-era State Department and USAID officials argue in this op-ed that Washington risks defaulting to U.N. transfers and outsourced implementation unless it rebuilds dedicated foreign assistance staffing, embassy-level coordination, and accountability infrastructure.

Despite Congress passing a law directing the State Department to spend $9.4 billion on global health and over $5 billion on humanitarian aid, ProPublica reports that Trump officials have delayed obligating funds, labeled aid money "unallocated" to require OMB sign-off, and ignored congressional inquiries.

With official development assistance falling 23.1% in 2025 and projected to decline a further 5.8% in 2026, The Conversation argues that the pullback in U.S. and other Western aid should push African governments to build fiscal self-reliance through fairer domestic taxation, smarter debt use, and unified bargaining power rather than continued dependence on donor goodwill.

Germany's far-right AfD is exploiting a fraud scandal at development agency GIZ — where 24 Yemen-office employees were dismissed over alleged embezzlement estimated at tens of millions of euros — to push for abolishing the country's development ministry entirely, with party spokesperson Rocco Kever explicitly pointing to the Trump administration's gutting of USAID as an "interesting and courageous signal" for Germany to emulate.

The U.S. has been able to lead the response to the May 2026 Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda only because CDC country offices preserved relationships with local health ministries through the dismantling of USAID and the U.S. exit from the WHO, Think Global Health reports. 

Acting CDC director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya publicly denied that the Trump administration's foreign aid cuts harmed the response to the ongoing Central African Ebola outbreak, saying he had seen no evidence the reductions affected the agency's ability to act — a claim that directly contradicts a recent House Oversight Committee report from Democrats citing the dismantling of USAID.

Just Security reports that the U.S. has reached a secretive agreement to deport third-country nationals to the Central African Republic, where they would face armed conflict, Russian Wagner-linked forces, and a collapsing health system now confronting Ebola risk.