# Foreign Aid Freeze & Dismantling of USAID

> Ordered a 90-day pause and review of nearly all U.S. foreign assistance, leading to the effective dismantling of USAID and termination of thousands of aid…

Donald Trump · Foreign Policy · Executive Order · EO 14169 · Jan 24, 2025
Official record: https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-02091

## What happened

Ordered a 90-day pause and review of nearly all U.S. foreign assistance, leading to the effective dismantling of USAID and termination of thousands of aid programs.

## How it happened

Executive order pausing disbursements, followed by mass contract terminations and absorption of remaining functions into the State Department.

## Documented impact

- [positive / contested] Supporters say it ends wasteful or ideologically driven spending abroad. — The administration argued foreign aid should be reciprocal and aligned with U.S. interests; critics dispute how much of the spending was actually wasteful.
- [negative / substantiated] The abrupt cutoff disrupted lifesaving health and humanitarian programs, with documented harm. — Stop-work orders hit HIV/PEPFAR, tuberculosis, famine and nutrition programs; on-the-ground reporting (e.g., ProPublica) documented specific deaths and harm tied to the freeze, and federal courts intervened over withheld, congressionally appropriated funds.
- [negative / projected] Peer-reviewed models project very large excess death tolls. — A 2025 Lancet study estimated roughly 1.8 million excess deaths in 2025 alone (uncertainty range ~1.0-2.5 million) and up to ~14 million cumulatively by 2030 under modeled cut scenarios; lower estimates (e.g., Center for Global Development, ~0.5-1 million in 2025) still point to large-scale harm. The exact toll is modeled and uncertain, but directionally severe.

## Sources

- [Federal Register: EO 14169](https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2025-02091)
- [ProPublica: harm and deaths after the USAID cuts](https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-usaid-malawi-state-department-crime-sexual-violence-trafficking)
- [The Lancet: forecasting the mortality impact of USAID defunding](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2825%2901186-9/fulltext)
- [CNN: study projects up to 9.4M deaths by 2030](https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/04/world/lancet-usaid-global-aid-cuts-intl)

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Canonical: https://eo.alanwizemann.com/eo/trump/foreign-aid-freeze-and-dismantling-of-usaid