• Posted July 7, 2025

More Than 14 Million Will Die Following U.S. Foreign Aid Cuts

More than 14 million children and adults will die from preventable causes during the next five years as a result of U.S. foreign aid cuts, a new study projects.

Programs supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) prevented 91 million deaths between 2001 and 2021 in low- and middle-income countries, researchers report in The Lancet. 

But USAID formally shut down Tuesday, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing that the U.S. is abandoning what he called a charity-based model of international aid.

"We will favor those nations that have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to help themselves and will target our resources to areas where they can have a multiplier effect and catalyze durable private sector, including American companies, and global investment," Rubio said in a statement.

The shutdown and resulting cuts to foreign aid will have a devastating impact on global health, researchers concluded after analyzing data from 133 countries.

“For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict,” senior investigator Davide Rasella said in a news release. Rasella is a research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain.

"U.S. citizens contribute about 17 cents per day to USAID, around $64 per year,” researcher James Macinko, a professor of health policy and management at UCLA, said in a news release. “I think most people would support continued USAID funding if they knew just how effective such a small contribution can be to saving millions of lives.”

The researchers found that USAID-supported programs reduced global deaths by 15% between 2001 and 2021, including a 32% decrease in deaths among children under age 5.

This included a 74% reduction in deaths from HIV/AIDS, 53% reduction in malaria deaths, and 51% reduction in neglected tropical disease deaths among countries receiving high levels of support.

Similar reductions were observed in deaths caused by tuberculosis, starvation, diarrhea, respiratory infection and health problems related to pregnancy, researchers said.

Overall, more than 91 million deaths were prevented, including 30 million among children.

“Our analysis shows that USAID funding has been an essential force in saving lives and improving health outcomes in some of the world’s most vulnerable regions over the past two decades,” lead researcher Daniella Cavalcanti, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Collective Health of the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil, said in a news release.

To project what this means for the future, researchers used forecasting models based on the sharp foreign aid reductions announced in early 2025. These amount to an 83% cut to USAID programs.

If the cuts continue, more than 14 million additional deaths could occur by 2030, including more than 4.5 million children younger than 5, researchers said. That amounts to about 700,000 needless child deaths per year.

“Our projections indicate that these cuts could lead to a sharp increase in preventable deaths, particularly in the most fragile countries,” Rasella said. “They risk abruptly halting — and even reversing — two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations.”

And once cut, these lines of support will not be easy to rebuild, researchers warn.

"From our experience on the ground, we have witnessed how USAID support has strengthened local health systems’ ability to respond to diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. Cutting this funding now not only puts lives at risk — it also undermines critical infrastructure that has taken decades to build," researcher Francisco Saúte, general director of the Manhiça Health Research Center in Mozambique, said in a news release.

Researchers also are worried that other international donors might reduce their commitments, noting that the U.S. previously contributed more than 40% of global humanitarian funding.

“The findings of this study are even more concerning given that other international donors — primarily in the EU — have also announced substantial reductions in their aid budgets, potentially leading to even more additional deaths in the coming years,” researcher Caterina Monti, a predoctoral researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said in a news release.

More information

The Pew Research Center has more on U.S. foreign aid.

SOURCE: Barcelona Institute for Global Health, news release, June 30, 2025