The Trump administration announced an additional $1.8 billion for U.N. humanitarian aid, bringing its total pledge to $3.8 billion across 21 countries. But the amount remains a fraction of the up to $17 billion the U.S. has contributed annually in recent years, as broader foreign aid cuts have forced U.N. agencies to cut programs, spending, and jobs, the AP reports.

A year after Washington froze and cut foreign aid, development workers in the Philippines say the damage continues, including with a coordinated misinformation campaign that recast USAID's publicly available funding records as evidence of U.S. interference, according to the South China Morning Post.

The GAO denied a bid protest and cleared a nearly $81 million contract for 2TechJV LLC to support the formal closeout of USAID. According to Bloomberg, this is a significant step in winding down the agency's remaining operations.

Nicholas Kristof argues that despite the Trump administration's attempts to recast its foreign aid record, the 71% cut in humanitarian aid from 2024 to 2025 remains the administration's most lethal policy. 

With roughly 85% of China's overseas financing issued as loans rather than grants, The Economist reports that Beijing's development model is structurally incapable of replacing the health, civil society, and independent media programs lost to U.S. aid cuts across Southeast Asia.

The Trump administration is threatening to withhold further funding from the United Nations unless it adopts sweeping reforms while promoting a new "trade over aid" strategy that aid organizations warn could severely reduce healthcare, education, and food support for millions worldwide, The Guardian reports.

The abrupt dismantling of USAID and the suspension of humanitarian funding left aid partners in Yemen without guidance on how to secure U.S.-funded assets, resulting in the Iranian-backed Houthis seizing over $122,000 worth of American-funded equipment, CNN reports.

PEPFAR's chief science officer resigned after publicly criticizing the Trump administration for using HIV aid as leverage over developing countries, Reuters reports.

In a new book, former USAID official Nicholas Enrich provides a firsthand account of DOGE's dismantling of the agency, describing how unqualified operatives tore apart decades of global health and development expertise, The Guardian reports.

David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, warns that aid cuts are stoking global economic instability amid the Iran war, noting that $40 billion has already been stripped from the world's poorest populations.

As part of its broader dismantling of traditional U.S. foreign assistance, the Trump administration is pushing U.N. member states to endorse a "Trade Over Aid Initiative" that promotes free-market reforms over donor-funded development, the AP reports.

New foreign assistance contracts and awards have plummeted 86% in number since the shuttering of USAID, with the few large agreements that remain flowing overwhelmingly to international organizations rather than to U.S. firms and nonprofits, according to the Center for Global Development.

Writing in Foreign Policy, Rockefeller Foundation president Rajiv Shah warns that if the current trajectory holds, the cuts to Overseas Direct Assistance could result in more than 9 million preventable deaths by 2030.

Global aid from OECD countries fell 23.1% in 2025 — the largest annual drop in the history of official development assistance, with the destruction of U.S. foreign aid programs accounting for three quarters of the global decline.

A new Carnegie Endowment report finds that the termination of U.S. foreign assistance to independent media has gutted newsrooms, emboldened autocratic government crackdowns, and opened the door for Russian and Chinese influence to fill the vacuum.

As the Trump administration's gutting of U.S. foreign aid sparks debate over America's diminishing global influence, NPR speaks with soft power scholars around the world to explain what the concept means — and what is at stake when aid dollars, once a tool for winning hearts and minds, disappear.

Global development aid fell by a record 23% in 2025 to $174.3 billion — the largest single-year drop ever recorded — with the U.S. alone driving three-quarters of the decline following the dismantling of USAID, according to new OECD data reported by Reuters.

The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration has quietly negotiated 28 bilateral health agreements with mostly African nations as part of its "America First" global health strategy, but its refusal to disclose the full terms publicly has alarmed transparency advocates and partner governments who fear disease-fighting funds are being leveraged to extract unrelated political and economic concessions.

Despite pledging to cut out "beltway bandits" in favor of local organizations, the Trump administration's overhaul of foreign aid funneled hundreds of millions in new dollars to a handful of large U.S.-based contractors in 2025, according to the New York Times.

As the U.S. dismantles its foreign aid infrastructure, China is seizing the opportunity to expand its global influence — pivoting away from large-scale infrastructure loans toward smaller, visible health and development projects designed to win hearts and minds in the very communities that U.S. aid once served, NPR reports.