When Elon Musk, DOGE, and President Trump halted funding for foreign aid and the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID), the response from the public made it clear that the American people don't understand the importance of this agency and how it has kept our country safe for decades. Misinformation coming from Elon Musk and President Trump certainly didn't help.
One of the false rumors was that USAID sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza. That rumor morphed into $50 million in condoms for the terrorist group in Gaza, Hamas.
Trump almost always inflates the numbers in his lies. By the end of the rumor’s lifespan, he was claiming: “USAID sent $100 million in condoms to Hamas.” He also embellished the lie by adding a new piece to the story: “And they used them to make bombs.”
None of that is true. USAID hasn't shipped condoms anywhere in the Middle East since 2019, and the agency's entire worldwide condom budget for fiscal year 2023 was roughly $8 million — for the entire planet.
Elon Musk ultimately conceded that USAID never sent condoms to Gaza. Certainly not $50 million worth.
And then there was a “transgender opera’ and ‘trans comic books,’ even though neither of them were funded by USAID.
The lies about wasteful spending (when programs we shouldn't be funding do exist — like regime change operations) caused in people to get angry and to disparage the work of USAID around the world.
It led to confusion about the significance of why the U.S. finances foreign aid initiatives. Ever since we withdrew from the global stage, China has started stepping into the role the U.S. once played in foreign aid.
Foreign Aid Costs You About a Penny on the Dollar
A KFF poll conducted February 18-25, 2025 asked Americans how much of the federal budget they think is used for foreign aid. On average, people said foreign aid takes 26% of the federal budget. More than half guessed higher than 10%. Only about one in ten got it right.
Foreign aid is about 1% of the federal budget.
The same poll asked whether we spend too much on foreign aid. 58% said yes. When researchers told them the real figure — 1%— the number who said "too much" dropped to 34 percent.
There it is.
People aren't angry about foreign aid. They're angry about a version of foreign aid that doesn't exist — a version they learned about from isolationist politicians and “America first” pundits. Correct the amount spent and most of the anger goes with it.
Where Foreign Aid Came From
Foreign aid as we know it was born out of the wreckage of World War II. Europe was flattened, starving, and vulnerable to whichever great power showed up first with food and money.
The Marshall Plan in 1948 was the answer. The United States poured billions into rebuilding European economies, not purely out of generosity, but because a broke and desperate Europe was a security problem for us.
It worked. It also became the template every other wealthy country copied.
Institutions followed. The United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank were born to handle aid at scale — not just emergency food drops, but roads, clinics, schools, and the boring long-term stuff that keeps a country from collapsing.
Why Countries Give Money Away
Two reasons, and they work simultaneously.
The first is the obvious one. People are dying of things we know how to prevent, and we can afford to prevent them.
The second is self-interest, and there's no shame in admitting that. Stable countries don't produce refugee crises. Countries with functioning health systems don't export outbreaks. Countries that see America as a partner don't offer their ports to Beijing.
And countries with growing middle classes eventually buy things from us.
Aid is cheap compared to what instability costs. That's not cynicism. That's just the math.
What the Money Buys
This isn't abstract. Child mortality has fallen sharply in regions that received sustained health aid, because that money paid for vaccines, clinics, and trained health workers who showed up.
Foreign assistance also builds the infrastructure a country can't build alone — roads, schools, hospitals, water systems. Those projects create jobs where they're built and, over time, let communities stop needing the help at all. That's the entire point.
In Ethiopia, aid-funded agricultural programs brought in better seed and better farming methods, and food production climbed. Families that had been one bad harvest from disaster suddenly weren't.
Then there's the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, which has driven down all three diseases across low-income countries by paying for treatment and prevention. We've covered what that funding means for HIV care specifically.
People will ask why we should spend our money treating diseases in other countries. Disease does not honor borders. We saw what happened when COVID broke out in China. It didn't stay in the country. It reached every corner of the world in a matter of weeks, shut down our economy, and killed more than a million Americans.
Infrastructure projects are also China's method of using soft power, and it's how the country has moved to outpace the U.S. in foreign aid. That's not a good thing.
The People Who Did This Work
USAID wasn't a building in Washington. It was engineers, nurses, agronomists, logistics staff, and educators working in places most Americans couldn't find on a map, often in languages they had to learn on the job and in conditions their families worried about constantly.
When the funding was cut, those workers weren't upset about their paychecks. They were devastated about the people they'd been sent to help, because they knew exactly what stopping meant.
Here's what it meant. An AIDS program in South Africa was giving pregnant women medication that prevents HIV from passing to their babies. It costs very little and it works nearly every time.
When that funding was frozen, thousands of babies were born with HIV who otherwise would not have been.
Those children will need treatment for the rest of their lives. This didn't save anyone money.
USAID employed roughly 10,000 people worldwide. In early February, the administration announced it would keep 611 of them and place everyone else on administrative leave. A federal judge briefly paused it.
On February 23, after the judge lifted his order, the agency placed nearly all remaining direct-hire staff on leave globally and began firing about 1,600 to 2,000 U.S.-based employees.
Six decades of institutional knowledge, gone in three weeks. You cannot rehire that. The relationships those people built in-country took careers to develop, and the countries on the other end of them have already noticed who's still showing up.
Foreign Aid Is National Security
The connection between foreign aid and national security is ignored constantly, and it shouldn't be.
Terrorist organizations recruit in places where the state has failed. Where there's no work, no school, no clinic, and no reason to believe tomorrow will be better than today.
When American-funded programs are the thing keeping a village fed and its kids in school, the recruiting pitch that America is the enemy doesn't work.
That is counterterrorism, and it's cheaper than the alternative by orders of magnitude.
Aid also buys access. Countries that work with us on health and development are countries that answer the phone during a crisis, share intelligence, allow overflight, and cooperate on outbreaks before they become pandemics.
You can't build those relationships in the middle of an emergency. You build them over decades, or you don't have them.
Pull the funding and the vacuum doesn't stay empty. China fills it, and it isn't doing so out of charity.
Where This Stands Right Now
The courts are the only thing that's slowed any of it down. On March 5, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the administration has to pay out nearly $2 billion owed to aid organizations for work they'd already completed.
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett joined the three liberal justices. Justice Alito wrote that he was “stunned.”
In its own filing to that Court, the administration confirmed it had already canceled 5,800 USAID contracts and 4,100 State Department grants — close to $60 billion in assistance.
So this is where we are. An agency built after World War II because we learned what happens when desperate countries have nowhere to turn has been taken apart in a matter of weeks, based on numbers that were wrong, over programs that were misdescribed, while a Supreme Court has to order the government to pay people for work already done.
The one percent is still one percent. What it bought was six decades of goodwill, a head start on every outbreak, and a reason for people in rough places to believe America was on their side. We'll find out what it costs to go without.
FAQs
How much of the federal budget goes to foreign aid?
About one percent. On average, Americans guess it's 26 percent. When people are told the real number, support for cutting it drops sharply.
How does foreign aid protect Americans?
It stabilizes regions that would otherwise produce refugee crises, outbreaks, and terrorist recruitment. Health programs abroad catch diseases before they reach us. Development partnerships give the U.S. allies who cooperate during emergencies.
Who actually worked for USAID?
Roughly 10,000 people worldwide — engineers, health specialists, educators, logistics staff, and social workers, most stationed overseas. In February 2025 the administration moved to retain 611 of them and fire or furlough the rest.
Doesn't foreign aid create dependency?
It can, when it's designed badly. That's a real criticism and worth taking seriously. But the programs that work — vaccination, agricultural training, water infrastructure — are specifically built so communities need less help over time, not more.
What happened to USAID in 2025?
Trump froze foreign aid by executive order in January. DOGE moved to dismantle the agency in February. Most staff were placed on leave or fired by February 23. On March 5, the Supreme Court ordered the administration to release roughly $2 billion owed for completed work.
