Unprecedented cuts to foreign aid, sanctions on the International Criminal Court, detentions and deportations of migrants, end of programmes supporting diversity and inclusion, or restrictions on women’s and minorities’ rights. The events of the first months of Donald Trump’s second mandate as the President of the United States have impacted human rights in many ways, mostly in the negative sense. Beyond strong political statements, how concretely have the steps of his second administration affected the state of human rights in the world so far?
Reshaping the Position of the US in Humanitarian and Development Structures by Executive Orders
Just like the weather on the inauguration day of January 20, 2025, Donald Trump’s return to the White House was abrupt and severe. During the first 100 days of his second term, he had signed almost 150 executive orders [1]. This is by far more than any other former US president has done in the last century. In fact, he signed the first 26 of them on his very first day in office.
Among the most well-known are those announcing the withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization, from the Paris Agreement on climate change, from the UN Human Rights Council,[2] and last but not least, the order titled Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid. While all of them present a challenge to the contemporary international system and multilateral governance, it is, probably, the latter which has been the most impactful so far.
It caused a pause to almost all of the US foreign assistance programmes for a review in order to align them with American interests. Some waivers were subsequently granted for life-saving humanitarian aid, under the condition that this aid would not include activities such as family planning or transgender surgeries. The majority of the programmes were managed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a federal agency established in 1961 providing a wide spectrum of foreign assistance and development projects.
Shortly after it was announced that 83% of USAID programmes (about 5,200 out of 6,200) would be terminated by the end of June 2025 and the rest of the agency’s functions would be included in the Department of State. Although a district court declared that such a step would violate the preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order issued in one of the many ongoing lawsuits on the matter, the agency was indeed dismantled on June 30.
What Have Been the Consequences of Trump’s Cuts on Foreign Aid So Far?
Although the expenses of USAID represented only 0.3% of the federal budget in 2024, which means that the US was not the largest donor to international aid in comparison to the size of its economy, it was the largest contributor to the humanitarian system in absolute numbers. For example, in 2023 the US accounted for 43% of government spending from all countries invested in humanitarian aid. Therefore, the cuts administered by Trump constitute a significant challenge for the current humanitarian system, further intensified by their unexpectedness and immediacy.
The main spheres of USAID’s activity involved initiatives contributing to global health, reduction of global poverty, food and water safety, or conflict prevention and education, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and low- and middle-income countries around the world. It financed large portions of programmes for prevention and treatment of tuberculosis, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, and HIV/AIDS through the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). For instance, PEPFAR alone is estimated to have saved approximately 26 million lives since its creation in 2003.
Even though the decision to terminate the agency’s funding is still challenged before several courts, human rights organisations and researchers are already counting the inflicted damage. Amnesty International in a report based on case studies with accessible reliable evidence highlighted the serious consequences for health services in Haiti, Yemen, or South Soudan, as well as to the disproportionate impacts on survivors of sexual violence in Guatemala or migrants in Afghanistan, Costa Rica, and Myanmar. Oxfam America estimates that up to 95 million people can lose access to basic healthcare and 23 million children access to education, with the most direct effects in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Besides, Amnesty International points out that the far-reaching consequences of USAID’s cuts can be considered as a violation of international human rights law. The most threatened are primarily the right to life and right to health, but also right to non-discrimination due to the disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups, and freedom of association as the cuts translate into undue suspension of funding to civil society organisations around the world.[3]
What Is at Stake in the Near Future?
Despite the fact that it is already difficult to assess, with evidence, the damage caused over the last months since the disruption of the funding, some experts go further and predict the future costs if the programmes are not restored. Professor of global health Brooke Nichols launched an Impact Counter estimating increases in mortality caused by the terminated US investments in vaccination and disease prevention. She estimates that almost 30,000 people have died from tuberculosis from the end of January to the beginning of July due to the disrupted funding, and that more than 2 million could die of tuberculosis by the end of 2030 if the funding is not restored. For HIV/AIDS, she estimates that nearly 70,000 adults and more than 7,000 children have died by the beginning of July because of the partial disruption of PEPFAR.[4]
Most recently, a collective study published in The Lancet indicated that 14 million additional deaths could occur by 2030 as result of the disrupted USAID funding overall. However, it is noticeable that the uncertainty interval of this finding ranges from 8 to almost 20 million additional deaths. This forecast is based on calculations showing that more than 90 million lives were saved thanks to USAID funding between 2001 and 2021.
Besides the increased mortality and risk of disease outbreaks and spreading, significant consequences can be expected in global food security and stability of agricultural markets, as well as for efforts of countering terrorism and migration. USAID played an important role in stabilisation and development in regions prone to radicalisation and violence. These impacts can most likely pose danger to the US itself as well.
USAID cuts have also had indirect negative influences. Crucial are job losses for humanitarian workers – around 20,000 American and 230,000 global jobs were lost by the end of May 2025. The global consequences of the second Trump administration are further exacerbated by the restrictions imposed on the United States Agency for Global Media, which are hindering access to independent information in authoritarian regimes around the world.
What Are the Prospects for International Cooperation and Global Governance?
The abrupt changes in humanitarian and development sectors will have multiple long-term implications. While the US share of humanitarian funding cannot be filled by other donors, they will still face increased demand for funding. The first in line to suffer from the lack of finances for their non-profit activities will be local and national NGOs, dependent on allowances from global programmes and agencies, which will have to search for alternative sources of funding.
Similarly, the UN in general also greatly suffers from this situation. As of June 2025, it has received only around 13% of the $44 billion it originally counted on for the 2025 budget for humanitarian aid – a budget which had already acknowledged that 115 million people in need would not be possible to assist. This fact reflects the global mood of international governance at present, when not only the US but also other Western countries are cutting their spending on foreign aid and prefer to invest, for instance, in defence.
Consequently, this results in what Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, described as “the most severe challenge to international humanitarian work since World War II”, which leads humanitarian workers to unenviable decisions about life-or-death choices when selecting which programmes to prioritise with the limited resources. Additionally, the retreat of the US from humanitarian aid presents an opportunity for other States to take advantage of assuming its place and using it to employ their soft power – a possibility which is already taking place for example in Cambodia, Mongolia, or Myanmar with the rising influence of China there. All of this leaves the international system in greater instability and uncertainty than long before.
Notes
[1] Executive orders are legally binding directives issued by the President of the US as an expression of their discretionary executive power. They direct the conduct of the Federal Government without the necessity of discussion with the Congress, but are still subject to some constitutional limits.
[2] The executive orders providing for the withdrawal from the World Health Organization and from the Paris Agreement issued on January 20, 2025 set up for 12-month withdrawing procedures from these organisations. The executive order on international organisations from February 4 announced that the US would not seek any further election to the Human Rights Council and would not have a national representative in this body, that it would not issue any funding to UNRWA, and that it would conduct a review of membership in UNESCO and all other international organisations and international treaties in which the US participates or financially contributes. In July, the government confirmed that the US would withdraw from UNESCO, with effect from the end of the year 2026.
[3] Right to life and freedom of association are enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 6 and Article 22 respectively) to which the US is a State Party. The US has signed, although not ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and therefore should not act against the object and purpose of it including international assistance towards the global enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. Additionally, USAID cuts defy the spirit of the UN Charter.
[4] These assessments are estimations based on epidemiological models and available statistical data. Applied methodologies can be found separately for the Tuberculosis Program Impact Tracker and for the PEPFAR Program Impact Tracker.
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