In the series Cuts and Consequences: The End of USAID, producer Molly Knight Raskin and PBS NewsHour correspondent William Brangham report on the impact of the Trump administration’s decision to shut down USAID, the agency responsible for distributing more than $40 billion a year to over 100 countries globally.
For decades, USAID had bipartisan support from lawmakers; many shared the belief that as the world’s wealthiest nation, the United States of America, has a moral obligation to help those in need. USAID also served as the cornerstone of American “soft power”—supporting programs that built alliances, promoted democracy, and countered terrorism, climate disaster, and disease epidemics.
Now, almost all of those programs are gone. While there have been lots of dire predictions about what this could mean in terms of lives lost, we don't yet know what the human toll will be. But our reporting confirms that people are dying because of the cuts, and more will continue to do so. For this series we report from countries including Kenya, Ghana, and Bangladesh to document what happens to vulnerable communities when USAID support vanishes, literally overnight.
