America First Foreign Assistance Wins on the 1 Year Anniversary of the Closing of USAID

The United States has long been the leader in foreign assistance, and on the one-year anniversary of the reorganization of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), that has not changed. The restructuring of U.S. foreign assistance saw oversight of all foreign assistance programs transferred to the State Department as USAID had deviated from its alignment with American foreign policy goals and become fiscally wasteful—high overhead costs, revolving contracts directed at beltway insiders at the expense of cultivating self-sufficiency by on-the-ground grassroots actors, and ideological programs pushing first-world agendas over developing-world needs.

The overlapping presence of both agencies, alongside other government agencies like Health and Human Services (HHS) in countries, often led to the lack of coordination between duplicative programs. Even within USAID, what should have been penny-and-pound wise interventions, such as tackling intestinal worms in children—which leads to stunting due to a lack of nutrition—was siloed separately in the food security and global health bureaus, with minimal to no coordination between the two.

This transition provided corrective, structural realignment, and while the full impact of the realized savings has not been fully defined, there have been noted wins when it comes to efficiency and policy alignment.

With USAID’s closing, several programs that saw little return on investment on the taxpayers’ dime and were agenda-driven came to light and the tap was turned off. Beyond misalignment with U.S. foreign policy priorities, expenditures such as the $6.3 million that went to a study on men having sex with other men in South Africa and the $5.5 million to promote LGBTQ causes in Uganda were often criticized by the communities that they sought to serve. Faith-based civil society organizations, which could have been effective partners especially in Africa given their extensive, trusted in-country networks and would have continued to serve communities even after funding ended, were often shunted aside in favor of connected “Beltway Bandits.”

Ironically and infuriatingly, these Beltway insiders often took their cut before then subcontracting with local partners that had lost out in the grant application process, often because the requirements were tilted towards the heavyweight insiders.

The awarding of a $9.5 billion contract by USAID to Chemonics in 2015 intended to deliver health supplies, including life-saving antiretrovirals, to the world’s poorest regions was the subject of extensive congressional oversight. However, investigations into the project’s efficiency found that in its most chaotic years, only 7% of scheduled shipments arrived on time and in full. Moreover, Chemonics and USAID where rumored to have fudged the projects results, focusing only on easy targets and writing off bad results. On top of this, it was discovered that Chemonics subcontractors in Nigeria had been engaged in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme with one project director living “substantially beyond their Chemonics salary.”

Beyond cutting these wasteful programs, the Trump administration has made changes to the mechanisms behind foreign aid apparatus that have increased efficiency and transparency. The America First Global Health Strategy serves as the primary example of the wins that can come from this consolidation. Utilizing bilateral memoranda of understanding (MOUs) instead of grants, the strategy has made it so that states receiving aid no longer receive guaranteed funding upfront but rather must hit goals that ensure money is being well spent.

The adaptations undertaken by the Global Health Strategy have mainly occurred in Africa, but their short-term successes have encapsulated the administration's vision for how foreign aid and bilateral relationships will work in the future, actualizing a plan to transition to country ownership, something which past Administrations have talked about but failed to implement successfully.

The clearest case of the model moving in the right direction is Botswana. The current “America First” MOU between the U.S. and Botswana amounts to $487 million; however, Botswana’s commitment of 78% of the total MOU is significantly more than that of the United States (Botswana plans to commit $381 million, while the United States only plans to commit $106 million). The 78% commitment from Botswana is significantly greater than that of the next highest countries, Nigeria (59%) and Cameroon (53%).

Burkina Faso’s new MOU offers a glimpse into how the model’s wins are not all monetary. The MOU obligates Burkina Faso to commit $107 million to its health budget while the United States commits to up to $147 million over five years. Beyond this, the MOU further obligates Burkina Faso to absorb what are currently U.S.-funded frontline health workers into its national workforce by 2030. This shift creates not just a monetary commitment but holds Burkina Faso accountable for making sure that their healthcare system can function without relying on annual U.S. funding. The transfer of long-term responsibility showcases how prosperity can be achieved for both the United States and partner nations.

Outside of the America First Global Health Strategy, another positive directional change has come from the reset that occurred between the United States and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). OCHA has been responsible for coordinating the global response to humanitarian crises such as the Turkey-Syria earthquake in 2023, and the war in Ukraine.

U.S. engagement with OCHA, like other international organizations, was hampered by USAID’s practice of distributing funds through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), many of which were notorious for the slow disbursement of funds weak accountability structures. As a part of the broader foreign aid reform, on May 14, 2026, the United States announced an additional $1.8 billion in funding for OCHA. Rather than flowing through the previous USAID-NGO grant system, money was sent to an unearmarked pool to be used based on events on the ground. The un-earmarked funds resolved one of the most significant efficiency roadblocks, and results followed. OCHA successfully got 88% of its available resources out into the field. It also set a record seven-day average for award disbursement—half of OCHA’s previous record and several times faster than what USAID had produced. Given the UN’s poor track record with efficiency, these small improvements are real and are an encouraging early indicator that the changes to the system are working.

The results from just a year’s worth of work in reframing and foreign assistance are telling. Investments made with no end goal in sight have been replaced with bilateral agreements that ensure co-prosperity and require partners to meaningfully invest in their own security. The movement away from the USAID-NGO funding structure has led to record-setting distribution times and greater efficiency. Foreign aid is again returning to its status as one of the United States’ preeminent foreign policy tools and as the model continues to evolve, its adherence to U.S. foreign policy goals and greater transparency will contribute to more effective use of taxpayer dollars.