After Trump’s re-election on November 5th last year and his subsequent inauguration on January 20th, the US President, with the aid of his ally, Elon Musk -the billionaire owner of both Tesla and X - has embarked on a substantial programme of executive order-driven policy to reduce the size of the federal state and reorient the US’s position in the world.
Musk’s new team, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has made sweeping cuts and layoffs across the US civil service to curb supposed wasteful and fraudulent spending. Legal and political voices have widely criticised Musk for his actions, and government watchdogs have questioned the legality of his access to the treasury payments system.
One of the most notable victims of DOGE is the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. Trump has described the agency as ‘incompetent and corrupt’, citing numerous cases of alleged wasteful spending, including the distribution of $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt first espoused this claim, which has since been disproved and walked back after both Musk and Trump repeated it several times on social media.
Plans to put thousands of USAID employees on leave with further plans to cut an agency of 10,000 worldwide to just a few hundred have temporarily been suspended by a federal judge. The agency’s dismantling is unlikely to contribute much to saving and is likely mostly predicated on Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda. USAID has an international budget of about $40 billion, less than 1% of US GDP, and its programmes have previously received bipartisan support, including from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Following his inauguration, one of Trump’s first executive orders was to sign a notification of the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). This marks the second time Trump has made such an order, the first being in 2020, due to his opposition to the organisation’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden retracted the original order in early 2021 before the required one-year notice period passed.
In the order released by the White House, concerns were cited over what the administration views as an unfair proportion of contributions. The US contributes about 12-15% of WHO funding, while China, with a much larger population, contributes significantly less.
Global health experts have raised concerns that the sudden fall of WHO and USAID funding will severely strain health programmes both within the US and internationally. The USAID programme, President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), is a major international AIDS relief programme. Despite a temporary waiver from funding cuts, the disruption caused by Musk’s cuts has affected the availability of its services, potentially putting millions of lives at risk. Providers have begun laying off workers, with some shutting down, unable to continue their operations after their funding was disrupted.
This week, Trump met with King Abdullah II, the Hashemite ruler of Jordan, to discuss his plan to relocate the 2 million Palestinians displaced from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan, which experts have said amounts to ethnic cleansing. Trump has threatened the country by cutting aid should it not sign his proposals.
There are around 3 million Palestinians currently living in Jordan, many of whom are expressing anger towards Jordan’s perceived inaction on the war in Gaza. Therefore, they remain reluctant to accept high numbers of Gazan refugees for fear of further unrest and strain on the state.
The supply of foreign aid has historically provided nations with significant soft power and strategic leverage against beneficiaries. Jordan is perhaps the US’s closest Arab ally in the Middle East, receiving around $1.72 billion a year in direct aid from the US government and historically cooperative relations with Israel. However, USAID cuts to the county of $770 million, with 75% used to fund key services and infrastructure, whilst the remaining goes towards the military. Egypt receives similar aid, but around 85% is allocated for military spending.
With the absence of US-led funding for middle-income countries, foreign policy experts are concerned that middle-income countries may fall back on Russia or China, which have sought to undermine USAID for years.
Even in a post-Trump world, previous beneficiaries of USAID may be reluctant to trust the US again. With the US stepping back from its significant role in global aid, it may struggle to find support in a new area of great power politics.
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