Priyanka Tiwari
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As reported by The New York Times, the actions taken by the Trump regime to cut foreign aid and junk the USAID will result in a humanitarian disaster, which would needlessly kill millions of people.
USAID internal memos forecast that such a reduction will create global health catastrophes beyond anyone’s imagination. An additional 166,000 would die due to the more than 18 million new cases of malaria that would result. Polio might paralyze 200,000 children per year, but the hundreds of millions that infect will rest in peace. One million children will die from severe acute malnutrition which is usually treatable. The memos predict all of these new cases parallel with the 28,000 new infectious diseases such as Ebola and Marburg that will emerge per year.
Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID, put forth these figures in memos that formed part of the documents The New York Times received. After the publication of the reports, Enrich was put on administrative leave on Sunday.
Internal resistance and bureaucratic hurdles
The Enrich results attempt to claim that USAID programs will die because of interference from the upper levels of the State Department, DOGE, and USAID itself. Those leaders are said to have blocked payment systems, developed insufficient funding methods, and persistently changed policy on what is defined as lifesaving assistance. In a second memo, is to be noted how the head count of USAID’s global health people has dropped from 783 in January to less than 70.
Abolition of aid programs around the world is a dangerous trend.
Even though a few humanitarian assistance programs were allowed to continue operating by the administration's initial waiver, 5,800 USAID projects were abruptly terminated last week, many of which had been funded through the waiver. ”It was clear to me that the implementation of that waiver was never going to happen,” Enrich said. “You had to show me you covered your bases, so I needed records.” Enrichment also said, “That was also what we were missing out on. In my case, I did just that.”
The embracing of these cuts goes well beyond the area of direct medical care services. Enrich memos also describe concerns about unrestrained epidemics of mpox and bird flu, forecasting 105 million cases in the United States alone. The number of maternal and child mortality is predicted to increase in as many as 48 countries, while drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) is expected to increase by 30 percent globally, forcing more patients to travel to the United States for treatment. That costs over $154,000 for each tuberculosis patient in medical costs. There is also a negative forecast on the well-being of U.S agriculture, foreign commerce, and domestic healthcare expenditures.
Potential constitutional and legal concerns
Skeptics argue that the cuts are illegal under United States law, since the awarding of foreign aid is under the purview of Congress and not the President. Matthew Kavanagh, who heads the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy and Politics, stated that the dismantling of USAID and the suspension of it’s programs not only endangers hundreds of millions of vulnerable people across the globe, but inflicts cruelty, provocatively challenging the Constitution.
The future of US humanitarian assistance is overly obscure
The global community was shocked by the Trump administration’s plan to strengthen foreign aid. Global health experts, development NGOs, and politicians are racing to try and reverse the cut to aid before more people perish. With millions of lives at stake, while the courts and the administration tussle, US foreign aid looks precariously leaning to cut. The decision about whether the White House will rescind plans, or remain steadfast, still hangs in the balance.
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