16 thoughts on what the Trump aid cuts mean for Africa

What implication does the most radical shift in foreign aid since the 1960s have for the world's youngest, most impoverished continent?

Credit: ICTworks

The sweeping cuts to U.S. foreign assistance that the Trump administration has launched since it took office have jolted the international development sector.

USAID, the U.S. government’s primary development assistance agency which oversaw most of Washington’s foreign aid programs, has been effectively dismantled. On March 10, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the review of U.S. aid which President Donald Trump demanded on his first day back in the White House was complete.

The key takeaway from his announcement was that more than 80 percent of USAID’s programs would be scrapped. The impact of these decisions on developing countries has been immediate and cataclysmic, particularly in Africa where anywhere between 30 and 40 percent of Washington’s foreign-assistance dollars are sent to. Around 70 percent of its non-humanitarian aid to Africa supported programs in health.

I have had very little to say about the U.S. aid cuts since they were announced, mainly for two reasons. One is that it has been an incredibly busy start to the year for me, as the reduced output of this newsletter so far in 2025 might suggest. The other is that the fallout from the shakeup to U.S. foreign aid is deeply personal for me. I have spent a considerable part of my professional career in the international development sector primarily but not solely in Nigeria and the West Africa region, on both the implementation and grantmaking sides of the ledger.

Over the years, I have worked on and volunteered for initiatives in the areas of health, education, electoral integrity, peacebuilding, migration, interfaith dialogue, women’s economic empowerment, human rights and public sector governance.

Among the estimated 100,000 people around the world who have lost their jobs due to the aid cuts are many colleagues including some who have since become good friends. We have spent time in each other’s homes as well as in villages, towns and cities across the African continent working with local partners to deliver vital assistance to underserved communities whose lives and livelihoods are now threatened by the loss of much-needed foreign aid.

My thoughts are with those friends, acquaintances and former colleagues who make up the backbone of development assistance on the continent but scarcely get much recognition from the “international community.” They are especially with the millions of Africans in communities which will bear the brunt of decisions made by people in locations far away from them.

There is some clarity about what has happened in the international development sector since the rollout of the cuts to U.S. foreign aid, and many folks have sought out my thoughts on what this all means for Africa. Thus, this is my opportunity to share some of my perspective on the Trump aid cuts.

The moral hazard of U.S. foreign aid in Africa

1. Reasonable people can agree that the brusqueness with which Washington shuttered vital programs that millions of people around the world depended on was callous. But the aid industrial complex was long overdue for a hard reset.

• Africa is extreme poverty’s last frontier despite more than six decades of foreign aid from rich countries like the United States. USAID and its web of U.S.-based contractors and “independent consultants” regularly undercut African expertise, steered financial resources away from local organizations and contributed to problems they were ostensibly deployed to the continent to help remedy. The disgraceful poverty line of $1.90 per day¹ is symptomatic of the low ambition of an international development sector that far too often intellectualizes poverty in Africa.

• Washington’s disbursement of foreign aid to African countries sustained despite widespread misinformation about its modalities and considerable hatred of it among substantial parts of U.S. society. The focus on USAID’s dissolution and the Trump aid cuts obscures the reality that other Western nations are also slashing their own aid budgets at sharp rates, and they have done so for much longer. Trump tried and failed to drastically reduce U.S. foreign aid disbursements during his first term, due to significant congressional resistance then that did not exist this time. The writing was always on the wall for African leaders who failed to read it.

  

  Credit: Council on Foreign Relations

2. In the wake of USAID’s demise, some of its most ardent defenders have made a point of overstating its virtues as well as those of foreign aid generally. USAID’s stated goals and its approach on the African continent were always incoherent and unrealistic, due to factors like Washington's short-termism and the incompability of its objectives with its behavior. The profit motive incorporated into USAID’s operations regularly stifled its core mission, which was purportedly to end the need for U.S. development assistance.

• The popular retelling of the emergence of PEPFAR — perhaps Washington’s most popular aid initiative in Africa — as being a consequence of the “compassionate conservatism” of former President George W. Bush conveniently ignores the preceding years of diplomatic pressure developing countries put on the U.S. and other Western nations to combat the price-gouging of antiretroviral drugs by pharmaceutical companies in the Global North.

• Those efforts led to Brazil’s introduction of locally-produced antiretrovirals; the establishment of the HIV Drug Access Initiative by UNAIDS; the World Health Organization’s launch of prequalification for generic antiretrovirals and the Accelerating Access Initiative, which significantly brought down the price of antiretrovirals for nearly 40 developing countries; and the World Trade Organization’s Doha Declaration, which enabled countries to manufacture generic medications for public health crises. These steps built up the momentum toward PEPFAR’s inauguration in 2003.

• It is possible to point to positive contributions USAID made in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South. It is equally important to absorb the lessons of its shortcomings for future reference, and not ovecompensate for or gloss over the failings of powerful, flawed institutions.

The political economy of foreign aid

3. I hate the term “aid dependency,” or at least the way it is used uncritically and stripped of subtext including by African critics of foreign aid. The term is devoid of useful analysis of international political economy, and sidesteps the notion that “dependency” does not just happen by chance but is created by powerful forces. To wit, every transaction necessarily requires both a buyer and a seller for it to be completed. Foreign aid was designed primarily to be a tool of influence, by ensuring that the priorities of the U.S. and other Western donors shaped the policies of recipient states.

• If African states have a problem of “aid dependency,” it is in large part because the Western powers like the U.S. which designed the post-1945 international order engineered it by creating a global economic system which marginalizes Africa to a status of being a mere supplier of natural resources to the rich world, weaponizing their structural advantages within the international system and dangling aid as a carrot (or stick) intended to constrict the agency of African states and keep them in Washington’s orbit, against the backdrop of strategic competition with the Soviet Union during the Cold War and China after it.

4. USAID represented the development pillar of Washington’s stated “3 Ds” approach to international engagement, the other two being defense and diplomacy. In theory, one of the stated objectives of foreign aid is to build the capacity of low-income states to perform their core duties and create a pathway toward long-term development. This would usually be done by implementing pro-market government reforms, holding multiparty elections and entering security partnerships typically with Western nations.

• In practice, however, U.S. foreign assistance disrupted local political economies in Africa by propping up regimes — especially of the authoritarian kind — at all cost as long as they served Washington’s interests. U.S. aid often displaced domestic incentives for governments to invest in public services and helped to preserve the predominance of the armed forces in countries like Niger, Chad, Uganda and Egypt. USAID’s managerialism and focus on short-term performance outcomes — don’t get me started on its Logical Framework! — dovetailed with electoral calendars that incumbents could tactically manipulate in order to win elections.

• More than 60 years after the so-called Year of Africa, when 17 countries gained their independence from European colonizers, USAID helped to boost far more regimes in Africa than it did strong states which can uphold a social contract with citizens.

5. Amid the calls for Africa to take more autonomy for its social development, some have advocated for a bigger role for philanthropy especially one that is African-led. It is doubtful whether philanthropy can plug the large gap left behind by USAID, but a better question might be whether it should.

• Philanthropy can have meaningful effects but it is not a solution to root causes that public policy should tackle. At its core, philanthropy is about the direction of the private assets of wealthy individuals toward societal causes in exchange for more policy influence. Large private foundations are opaque, unaccountable and just as beset by all the familiar pitfalls of other donor organizations. A bigger role for philanthropy would not ameliorate the problems associated with official development assistance and would only replicate them. On such a large continent with myriad societal challenges, there is a role for foundations to play but it must not come at the expense of developing robust African states which are capable of providing basic services to citizens.

Aid and African governance

6. In conversations I had before the 2024 U.S. presidential election with several policymakers across the African continent, most did not harbor any illusions about what a second Trump administration would mean for Africa. Some even conceded that it would likely reduce some amount of U.S. development assistance. But few of them anticipated the immediacy, speed and extensiveness with which Trump delivered the coup de grâce to Washington’s aid toolkit.

• After the aid cuts were announced I followed up with some of the officials I spoke with before the U.S. election as well as others I hadn’t talked to previously, and it would be an understatement to say the Trump aid cuts have left them scrambling to make up for the loss of Uncle Sam’s substantial kitty. Among African NGOs and civil society organizations I have spoken to, many of which have regularly experienced the ups and downs of donor funding, they were not as shocked as government officials but they were no less taken aback by the precision with which their funding was cut off.

7. Many African government officials, public intellectuals, entrepreneurs and even ordinary citizens have welcomed the aid cuts as an “opportunity” and a “blessing in disguise” that they believe will force the continent's leaders to be more accountable for the welfare of their constituents, boost intra-African cooperation and end Africa's dependence on the West, among other developments that they regard as positive.

• Few people yearn for those outcomes more than me but the “blessing in disguise” that will purportedly emerge from Africa weaning itself off from foreign aid will materialize only if its people take steps to ensure that it happens. It is entirely possible that some political leaders don’t rise to the occasion and do nothing to provide for the welfare of their constituents even if they never got another dollar of foreign assistance. If the aid cuts represent an “opportunity” for Africa, it is one that its leaders must seize with both hands in order to create an eventual “blessing in disguise.”

8. The steep cuts to U.S. aid have stirred debates about what some folks on the continent commonly describe as “the cost of governance.” Specifically, many Africans have argued that their political leaders ought to be able to make up for the loss of U.S. aid by reducing the sums of money lost to corruption. You might even describe it as the “waste, fraud and abuse” framework, in keeping with the DOGE zeitgeist that fed USAID “into the woodchipper,” as Elon Musk put it.

• I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but “tackling corruption” and “reducing waste” are a perpetuation of the technocratic “good governance” approach that Western donors have imposed on Africa for more than three decades but whose impact has been negligible. Corruption and waste are symptoms of weak state capacity, and not causes of it. Anti-corruption and a reduction of waste in government are laudable goals, but will not by themselves fill public coffers across the continent to the extent that is needed.

• The deficiencies of African states are structural in nature, such that many African governments as they exist today would not be able to fund all their priorities even if a single penny was never stolen, wasted or misappropriated in some other way. This is because African economies are not as large and productive as they could be, and governments on the continent do not generate nearly enough domestic revenue as is needed to fund social services.

• The inability of African states to design bigger, more elaborate economies, collect more taxes to invest in key public services and enforce anti-graft rules are all connected to the weak state capacity of African states. You cannot address one of these problems without tackling the others.

• Good things are often expensive. Therefore, the cost of governance must necessarily be high if African governments are to fulfill the expectations of their constituents. Across the continent, recurrent expenditures in public budgets pay for obligations owed to teachers, doctors, nurses, cops, gendarmeries, armed forces, sanitation workers and other public servants who African citizens consistently say they expect more and better of. The problem of African states isn’t that they spend too much money but that they spend too little of it relative to the scale of their challenges, and apportioned public funds are often spent in unproductive ways.

• “Government efficiency” sound wonderful in theory until it is time for citizens to identify what vital services they would be willing to pare down or forfeit entirely in the pursuit of more “efficiency.” Africa must stay clear of U.S.-style binaries about “big” vs “small” government and embrace common-sense approaches to statebuilding that its peers in Asia have adopted.

9. The aid cuts will have a calamitous effect in Africa at least in the short to medium term, particularly in areas of health and humanitarian assistance where the bulk of Washington’s foreign assistance was allocated to. They will likely set back progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, three of the leading causes of death on the continent. The loss of U.S. aid dollars is almost certain to increase debt burdens as governments will be forced to borrow even more money from foreign sources to fund health, education and other vital needs. Nonetheless, I have no regard for the more extreme, predictable doomsaying about Africa I have come across that is reminiscent of the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and which is devoid of clearsighted thinking about how African governments can navigate what is undoubtedly a crisis.

Credit: KFF

• The impact of the cuts will likely vary across the continent over time due to differences of economics, systems of government, demographics, state capacity and other relevant factors. Some governments will adapt better than others, and African societies have considerable agency that they can exercise. The point is that Africa is not hopeless and there are steps that continental governments can and must take to ameliorate a situation that is FUBAR.

U.S. domestic politics and aid to Africa

10. U.S. citizens, elites and the public alike, have conflicting views on foreign aid. On the one hand, they overstate how much their government spends on development assistance, are skeptical of its desirability and effectiveness and wrongly believe that a lot of aid is lost to fraud in recipients countries. On the other hand, they tend to believe that their country ought to share at least a small portion of its wealth with foreigners who are in need and support for aid often increases when Americans are presented with more accurate information about it.

• A major reason why USAID did not survive the Trump-Musk onslaught was not popular opposition to foreign aid, but rather indifference to it. Foreign affairs tend to have little salience among U.S. citizens, to say nothing of aid. As a result, the public regularly take its cues on international issues from social elites. The increased support in the two main political parties for U.S. retrenchment abroad and weak engagement of the U.S. Congress by African governments essentially meant that there was no constituency for foreign aid, which is coded overwhelmingly as an “African” issue.

11. Trump’s claim that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency identified “eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho” was likely rooted in a falsehood. What is true is that USAID officials and their network of U.S.-based partner organizations have regularly exported themes of U.S. culture wars to African countries in ways that were counterproductive to their stated mission in those societies.

• The globalization of domestic culture wars features causes identified with both left-wing and right-wing cohorts in the U.S. In doing so, U.S. aid workers often find support among likeminded locals — typically ones who are economically prosperous, reside in big cities and some of whom were educated in Western societies or have resided there — who are generally unrepresentative of the wider society they come from. Both U.S. development hands and the locals they find common ground with share a tendency to pathologize African views on social issues and display patronizing attitudes towards local cultural mores that they regard as “backward.” In fairness, it must be acknowledged that many African activists — like those who advocate for LGBTQ rights, reproductive health and climate change — regularly criticize the methods of their fellow travelers that they find to be inexpedient.

• USAID was a tool of ideological conditioning on the continent, by channeling funds towards organizations and ideas that aligned with U.S. interests, thereby reinforcing a local bourgeoisie class that was palatable to the U.S. and the West more broadly. If they weren’t already inclined that way to begin with, USAID-funded organizations in African civil society and NGO networks typically displayed evidence of capture by mirroring the neoliberal language and preferences of U.S. non-profits and carefully aligning their priorities with those of USAID and its partners.

• Some might retort by saying that U.S. foreign assistance is not totally altruistic and is about the pursuit of Washington’s strategic interests. It is unlikely that all of those folks feel the same way about China, whose footprint in Africa is framed negatively by U.S. policymakers, journalists and commentators all while Washington’s motives are presumed to be benevolent.

The remittance factor

12. It is common for many including critics of foreign aid to point out that remittance inflows to Africa outstrip aid. Thus, some argue, Africa can get by without development assistance from the West and it should prioritize investment inflows from the African diaspora and elsewhere. This view, which is premised on the belief that diaspora remittances are an unalloyed positive, is deeply flawed.

• For starters, the $100 billion in remittance inflows that African countries received last year equals to approximately $1.8 billion for Africa’s 55 countries. This figure is far too small to meet the continent’s developmental needs. Furthermore, remittances tend to be unevenly distributed and skew towards a handful of nations like Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco, Kenya and Ghana. They distort local economies and cause destabilizing fluctuations in consumer prices and foreign exchange markets.

  

  Credit: Afridigest

• This should indicate that diaspora remittances are not the inherent boon that the conventional wisdom suggests. In fact, they underline the fragility and structural weaknesses of African economies, when one considers that remittances tend to come from migrants who left their homes for greener pastures abroad and commonly go not toward “investment” but basic expenditures like rent, school fees and other living costs. It is certainly possible that remittances can spur “investment” on the continent but that would come down to structural transformations African policymakers must undertake. Remittances will not do that by themselves.

Africa, foreign aid and the evolving geopolitical landscape

13. The U.S. aid cuts underscore Beijing’s argument to its African interlocutors about its reliability in contrast to Washington and present China with an opportunity to consolidate its position as the continent’s primary foreign partner. But China is unlikely to replace the tens of billions of dollars’ worth of aid Washington has spent across Africa for decades, given Beijing’s domestic challenges, evolving overseas presence and the different nature of its footprint on the African continent.

14. Africa has the highest rate of extreme poverty in the world, with 23 of the 28 poorest countries located on the continent. 32 of the 44 countries listed by the United Nations as the least developed countries are African. African economies must grow if the continent is to permanently move away from aid. It is that simple. Growth alone will not propel Africans into prosperity and sustainable development, but prosperity and sustainable development on the continent are practically impossible without continuous economic growth.

15. As I have written about previously, the U.S. remains popular in Africa in ways other Western powers envy. According to a Gallup survey from last year, Africa was where the image of the U.S. was strongest. USAID, embodied by its visual identity of a firm handshake and bold text draped in the red, white and blue of the U.S. flag, was an iconic emblem of U.S. soft power in Africa on par with Hollywood, blue jeans and CNN.

• Positive perceptions of the U.S. on the continent endure despite its hegemonic foreign policy and tepid footprint on the continent. Washington has historically leaned overwhelmingly on development assistance as its main instrument for projecting influence in Africa, and its non-aid toolkit is lackluster especially in comparison to Beijing. The volume of trade between African countries and the U.S. has been on a downward trajectory for more than a decade, and existing trade volumes are skewed toward a handful of countries like South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Morocco, Libya, Algeria and Ghana. Although there is a large African diaspora in the U.S. that includes Black Americans, there is a tendency to overstate their ability to be vessels of tangible geopolitical influence.

  

  Credit: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

• According to the New York Times, the U.S. has spent less than 0.3 percent of its gross national income on aid since 1972. Although Washington is Africa’s largest donor of development assistance by some margin, USAID makes up 0.7 percent of the U.S. federal budget while foreign aid makes up 0.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. It stands to reason that foreign aid disbursements to African countries were a modestly-sized investment that yielded outsized returns in terms of popularity and geopolitical clout for the United States.

• At a time when its policy elites are concerned about the loss of U.S. influence in Africa to its rivals, the Trump administration’s decision to essentially forfeit Washington's ace in the hole is a geopolitical own goal that will likely diminish its ability to project meaningful influence on the continent in the long term.

16. Trump’s cuts to U.S. foreign aid have triggered exhortation to “reimagine aid” and for Africa to “think about” life after foreign assistance. Indeed, panel discussions, seminars, symposiums and conferences with similar themes are already making the rounds. There will be many more of them in the coming months and perhaps years, particularly in cities like London, Paris, Brussels, Washington DC and New York where few if any Africans who depend on foreign assistance will be seen or heard from.

• Africans would do well to partake in fewer of such frivolities going forward given the stakes involved. A wholesale paradigm shift above and beyond aid is needed and it must address vital questions of statebuilding at home and international relations overseas. African societies can no longer afford to be a testing ground for the experiments of foreign donors. The era of African government officials spending so much time on the donor circuit and being shepherded around at “Africa summits” for sums of money that are rounding errors in rich countries must come to an end.

• No outsiders, including the self-proclaimed “Africa experts” and “Africa enthusiasts” who dominate international discourse of the continent's affairs and to whom African elites are always at pains to ingratiate themselves, can be more invested in the continent’s long-term wellbeing than its own people. It is time for Africans to look at the world as it exists today and craft strategies to secure the future they seeks within it. Even one day late might also prove to be a dollar short.
  

1. The figure has since been “increased” to $2.15. progress!