USAID Spending Cuts: Are People Dying? The U.S. Gives the Most by Country but European Countries as a Whole Give Nearly Double What the U.S. Gives and Most EU Countries, Japan, and Canada Give More as A Percentage of Gross National Income: China Gives Very Little

     From the title, you can see that EU countries, Japan, and Canada give more as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI). While Trump rightfully complained that NATO countries had not been contributing enough for their own defense, the same can be said for official development assistance (ODA) from the U.S., even though the U.S. contributes  

“When measured as a percentage of a country’s economy, even before Trump, the U.S. was far behind nations such as Britain, Norway, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. The United Nations has set a target of contributing 0.7 percent of gross national income in development aid; the U.S. clocks in with less than 0.2 percent, near the bottom of the list of major democracies, according to a 2020 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Most economists would say that a percentage of a nation’s economy is a more accurate way to measure the generosity of a country.”

     The U.N. has a goal for ODA of 0.7% of GNI. Only Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, and Denmark currently contribute above that level in 2024. The U.S. is at a mere 0.22%, between Slovenia and South Korea.  

Source: OECD.org

     During a recent Congressional hearing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked how many people have died due to USAID spending cuts. His answer was that the U.S. was the biggest contributor and defers to other countries’ spending cuts.

“The United States is the largest humanitarian provider on the planet,” he said. “I would argue: How many people die because China hasn’t done it? How many people have died because the U.K. has cut back on spending and so has other countries?”

     As an individual country, it is true we are the biggest provider of humanitarian aid, but as a percentage of GNI and on a per capita basis, that is not the case. According to my calculations using the OECD data given in the first graph, I derived the second graph showing that Europe as a whole, including the UK and non-EU countries, gives nearly double what the U.S. gives. The third graph is an attempt to adjust for population, which I estimated at 550 million for Europe and 340 million for the U.S. Per capita, Europe pays 6% more than the U.S. for development aid. That surprised me. The Europeans would have a valid gripe if they said the U.S. should give more in development aid. The U.N. has a goal for ODA of 0.7% of GNI.

Data Source: OECD.org

Data source: OECD.org

     Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post writes:

“Rubio is correct that Britain and France have cut back, and that China, so far, has not been much of a foreign-aid donor. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, for instance, said he would pay for increased defense spending by cutting the foreign-aid budget from roughly 0.5 percent of gross national income to 0.3 percent. (Note that is still higher than the U.S. share before Trump.) China’s aid budget is a bit opaque — numbers have not been published — but it appears to be an average of just over $3 billion a year, according to the Brookings Institution.”

     Thus, we see that in the case of the UK, they are cutting humanitarian aid to pay for military spending, lowering their %GNI for humanitarian aid to increase their %GDP spending for NATO. As many have argued, humanitarian aid is also “soft power” or at least offers an ability to project a donor country as a responsible partner in development. If spent wisely, not on condoms in Gaza (joke), it is hard to argue that it is not a good investment. Aid partnerships are important, and the loss of them is potentially tragic. Kessler goes on:

“But when it comes to whether people have died as a result of the Trump administration’s cuts, we have to look at how the cuts unfolded. Starmer announced his plans in a pending budget proposal. President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 signed an executive order imposing a 90-day freeze on all foreign-aid funding — and then Musk forced out thousands of employees who worked at USAID, helping to manage and distribute funds. The resulting chaos was devastating, according to numerous news reports.”

“Sherman’s staff held up a photo of Pe Kha Lau, 71, a refugee from Myanmar with lung problems. On Feb. 7, Reuters quoted her family as saying she died “after she was discharged from a U.S.-funded hospital on the Myanmar-Thai border that was ordered to close” as a result of Trump’s executive order. The International Rescue Committee said it shut down and locked hospitals in several refugee camps in late January after receiving a “stop-work” order from the State Department.”

Several more examples were given in the hearing, and although anecdotal, the suspension of aid for three months and the loss of staff surely had a negative effect on those in need. It is also clear that with less ODA spending, fewer lives will be saved. Data on lives lost and lives saved is notoriously hard to attribute, quantify, and verify. A March 3 internal memo by USAID’s former acting assistant administrator for global health estimated many more cases of malaria, TB, polio, and resulting deaths.

     According to Brooke Nichols, a Boston University infectious-disease mathematical modeler and health economist,

“It’s true that other countries are cutting back on humanitarian spending. But what makes the U.S. approach so harmful is how the cuts were made: abruptly, without warning, and without a plan for continuity,” she said. “It leads to interruptions in care, broken supply chains, and ultimately, preventable deaths. Also, exactly because the U.S. is the largest provider of humanitarian aid, it makes the approach catastrophic.”

     Kessler concludes with the following comment, calling out Rubio:

“There is no dispute that people have died because the Trump administration abruptly suspended foreign aid. One might quibble over whether tens of thousands — or hundreds of thousands — have died. But you can’t call it a lie. Rubio earns Four Pinocchios.”

 

 

References:

 

Official development assistance (ODA). OECD. Official development assistance (ODA) | OECD

Rubio’s claim that it’s ‘a lie’ that people have died from foreign-aid cuts. Glenn Kessler. Washington Post. May 28, 2025. Rubio’s claim that it’s ‘a lie’ that people have died from foreign-aid cuts