WikipediaExtracts:United States Agency for International Development
Extracted from Wikipedia --
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was formerly the world's largest agency for foreign aid. During the Cold War in 1961, USAID was established to compete with the Soviet Union through the use of soft power.
In February 2025, the Trump administration first ordered a freeze on all non-life-saving programs and then ended 83% of overall projects.
In July 2025, the Trump administration announced that remaining USAID programs would be run by the State Department. However, USAID had been reorganized by the United States Congress as an independent agency in 1998 and can only be closed down by an act of Congress. As such, it remains a de jure (“from law”) agency of the United States. In addition, budget requests, the Office of Inspector General, and court filings have continued to acknowledge USAID's legal existence.
From 2001 to 2024, USAID had an average budget of $23 billion a year and missions in over 100 countries in areas as diverse as education, global health, environmental protection, and democratic governance. In the twenty years from 2001 to 2021, USAID saved a yearly estimated range of between 4.1 and 4.7 million lives, with a yearly estimated subset of between 1.2 and 1.7 million children under five saved.
