Mideast: USAID Is Gone, What Now?

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On March 28 this year, President Trump’s administration announced that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) would be reduced to the minimum number of staff allowable by law and that the State Department would assume the organization's responsibilities. The world reeled from this announcement. 

USAID.gov now displays only one thing. A message from the Executive which begins, “As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally.”

USAID was responsible for the majority of the United States’ international programming on poverty, public health, and the promotion of democracy. President John F Kennedy established USAID in 1961 alongside the Peace Corps as part of his administration’s dedication to development as foreign policy. 

In the years since 9/11, the US has begun taking a larger role in the Middle East as part of the War on Terror. Most impactfully, US presence included invading Iraq and Afghanistan. However, there was also a significant amount of constructive development work and diplomacy conducted alongside the militaristic procedures.

From 2001 to 2023, of the top six recipients of US foreign aid money, five are considered Middle Eastern. Afghanistan ($145.9B), Israel ($91.2B), Iraq ($89.4B), Egypt ($49.2B), and Jordan ($30.4B). The only country breaking up this list is Ukraine ($41.3B), which mostly flowed after Russia’s invasion in 2022. 

These numbers include military support, which is pertinent in all of these instances and falls outside of the purview of USAID, yet it nonetheless demonstrates the availability of US resources to partners in the region. 

What Was USAID Up To?

USAID spending in Iraq and Afghanistan especially supported rebuilding civilian infrastructure, which the US war destroyed. ReliefWeb reported that in 2003 and 2004, USAID spent over $3.2B in Iraq. This money supported the production of electricity, the provision of clean water, telecommunications, transit infrastructure, agricultural production, education, public health, environmental protection, economic governance, and even youth sports.

USAID grants to Israel support both Israeli national efforts to establish climate resilience and infrastructure developments, but also Israeli efforts in international projects. Israeli organizations doing work all over the world, from Vanuatu to the Gaza Strip are set to lose funding. 

During the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza, the Israeli Knesset has significantly curtailed the operational capacity of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA, the UN agency devoted to the Palestinian people, provided the majority of education, public health programming, financial aid, and other civilian infrastructure in Gaza. UNRWA was the primary governing body apart from Hamas infrastructure. 

Without UNRWA, the strip became dependent on other NGOs, which also struggled for Israeli approval. Now, it relies heavily on Israel for humanitarian assistance, which is supported by USAID. 

USAID has historically been a large supporter of Palestinian development in grants and programming for infrastructure development, supporting democratic institutions, and education. Unfortunately for all those curious, the US Department of Government Efficiency has removed the USAID archives from the internet.

In wartorn Sudan and Yemen, USAID plays a vital role in supporting food aid. Soup kitchens across global conflicts rely on food donations, volunteers, financial support, and logistical frameworks implemented by USAID. 

USAID is gone. So now what? Of their 6,200 programs running in 2024, 1,000 remain, and they have been taken on by the State Department, which has notably more US-centric goals than even USAID, which was already plenty patriotic. 

Now What?

The massive gap by USAID reveals a problematic global dependency on the US. Of course, as the strongest global economy, the US has long had a responsibility to aid the world in its struggle against poverty. However, the consequence of reliance is the possibility of the rug being pulled out from underneath. Enter Trump.

The Middle East must find alternative organizations, funding sources, and partner states to aid them in their struggle to support civilian infrastructure across the region. 

Some states are ready and eager to step in. The United Arab Emirates fancies itself a large humanitarian provider ready to donate across the region. So do other financial powerhouses of the Middle East, like Turkey or Saudi Arabia. 

Some other states, even without the financial prowess, will step in if only to make the argument that the US was never a real ally in the first place. Russia and Iran find it in their interests to demonstrate how the development and aid goals of the US were always farcical and myopic, and that a new world order is necessary. BRICS, the economic bloc made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, among others, has an opportunity to provide an alternative international order that is less reliant on the US.

The European Union, which is threatened by BRICS and especially Russia, will strive to counter this. Jordan, Palestine, and Syria have already experienced the support of the EU increasing as they make an argument for continued Western leadership of the international order. 

Jordan is lucky in that the Trump administration is forging ahead with large US development funding for the country despite the cuts to USAID, deeming them essential to US interests. Other countries without the money coming in from the US will pursue far more unorthodox measures to continue development projects.

Or, rather tragically, will give up on them altogether. 

Already, 77 percent of the Sudanese soup kitchens have closed, pushing the starving population even closer to the brink of famine. Syria will rebuild its country from scratch, the only help coming from the US in the form of reduced sanctions. Israeli NGOs will be shrunk as their nation lost its appetite for funding humanitarianism on October 7th. Climate resiliency, independent journalism, and public health will struggle across the region until proper adjustments are made to reduce reliance on USAID. 

Oil-rich autocrats will increase their power, and children will continue paying the price of adult wars.