Overview
- An inexperienced team led by Peter Marocco and 28-year-old Jeremy Lewin moved to eliminate roughly 90% of USAID’s work early in President Trump’s second term and marked the milestone with a sheet cake, according to ProPublica.
- More than 5,000 programs were canceled, fewer than 1,000 remained, and many of the surviving projects went unfunded as the State Department later absorbed the remnants.
- Days after the cuts, a USAID-funded World Relief clinic at the center of South Sudan’s cholera crisis announced it would close, after previously saving more than 500 people with treatment.
- The official cholera death toll in South Sudan has reached nearly 1,600, with reporters documenting signs the real number is higher, including newly dug unmarked graves.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserts no one died because of the cuts and says lifesaving work was reinstated, while ProPublica reports months-long funding delays, expired grants, and researchers in The Lancet warn of more than 14 million potential deaths by 2030, including setbacks to HIV/AIDS efforts.