Church agencies see impacts of USAID cuts

While Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) do not depend on funds from USAID—the United States Agency for International Development—they are witnessing the results of the Trump administration’s drastic cuts to USAID. In a recent article in Broadview magazine, Andy Harrington, executive director of CFGB, said the USAID changes are having a “horrifying ripple effect across the globe.”

On his first day in office, January 20, President Trump signed an executive order that put a 90-day pause on foreign development assistance from USAID, the world’s single largest humanitarian aid donor by dollar figures.

In early February, Elon Musk, head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with no official government powers, said on X, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper.” Nearly all 10,000 USAID employees were placed on administrative leave, though as of press time, a court action was challenging the efforts to dismantle USAID.
Trump says overseas aid doesn’t fit his America-first agenda.

As a result, half a billion dollars worth of U.S.-grown food aid is reportedly wasting in storage around the world.

In addition, in an email to Canadian Mennonite, Harrington cites the impact of the USAID turmoil that CFGB has seen among its wider network of partners. An agency in Afghanistan and Pakistan has had 40 per cent of its budget disappear, while multiple partners in Ethiopia have had to put their staff on leave without pay, one laying off more than 900 people.

“Aside from the cuts themselves, the uncertainty about staffing, food in storage, future programming, etc. is increasing the turmoil and stress,” wrote Harrington.

In a statement, MCC Canada said, “We recognize that the USAID cuts will have broad impact on the humanitarian and development sector, including some of our partners who depend on USAID funding as part of their income. As an organization deeply committed to walking alongside communities in need, we grieve the suffering these cuts will cause. However, MCC does not rely on USAID funding for our international programs, and no MCC staff positions are funded by USAID. We do receive a tiny amount (US$140,000) for shipping material resources, but this is only a small portion of our budget and won’t affect any of our shipments.”

USAID was founded in 1961 to aid struggling countries and respond to emergencies. Last year, US$40 billion of the US$72 billion in official humanitarian aid provided by the U.S. government was distributed through USAID.

Although the largest aid donor in the world, the U.S. spends less by percentage of its gross domestic product on official aid than all other G7 countries, at 0.24 percent. Canada ranks fifth at 0.38 per cent.

A significant portion of official food aid provided by the U.S. has been in the form of goods purchased from American producers. In contrast, Canada “untied” all its food aid in 2008. This meant the Canadian government stopped requiring food for overseas aid to be purchased or produced in Canada, instead purchasing food in or near the recipient countries.

In addition to urgent concern about the cuts to USAID, those in the humanitarian aid sector worry about the impact of claims that the sector is wasteful or worse—Musk described USAID as “a criminal organization.”

Harrington, whose organization is funded by Canadian donors and government, said, “We’ve heard voices saying that much of Canada’s aid is wasted, which ignores the very stringent rules around aid spending and casts doubt on the positive impact of aid. It is essential for Canada’s role in the world that we, as a country, value aid and the impact that it has in not just creating stronger communities overseas but also creating a stronger Canada.”

The backdrop to the high-stakes drama with USAID is urgent hunger in various parts of the world. According to Harrington, even before the freeze of USAID funds, CFGB was hearing from partners about “heart-wrenching decisions they make to stop providing support to people living with hunger so they can instead provide support to people who are starving.”