State Dept. says some life-saving efforts spared from massive USAID cuts

The State Department confirmed Thursday it plans to end more than 90% of USAID contracts around the world, while keeping in place contracts for the most crucial food and health programs. 

The department claims its cuts would allow the agency to tighten its belt by $58.2 billion in unspent funds on multi-year awards, but it provided no documentation to support its claim. It’s also not clear that the department is funding the initiatives it claims it’s supporting.

USAID disbursed nearly $9 billion around the world in 2024 on public health initiatives. A State Department spokesperson said Thursday the agency spared critical USAID awards, including for food assistance, and life-saving medical treatments for diseases such as HIV, malaria and tuberculosis.

But Lucica Ditiu, the executive director of the Stop TB Partnership, said her global nonprofit, which focuses on tuberculosis, lost funding.

“That is not correct, absolutely not true,” she said of the claim that life-saving treatments were spared.

She said her organization would survive without U.S. assistance, but it will have to downsize weeks after securing what she was led to believe would be a five-year commitment.

The U.S. government has been the largest government-to-government donor in the effort to end tuberculosis, a preventable and curable disease that is the leading cause of death globally from a single infectious agent. 

The Stop TB Partnership provides grants using USAID funds to 140 grassroots tuberculosis treatment and prevention organizations around the world, some of which perform the risky task of going door-to-door in search of people suffering from the infectious disease.

The State Department has not specified exactly which programs have been cut, and which have been spared. USAID, which represents a fraction of 1% of the federal budget, has been targeted for elimination by the White House’s cost cutters, most notably the world’s richest man Elon Musk. The agency he championed, DOGE, has posted a “wall of receipts” that purports to show where cuts are being made. It’s been marked by inaccuracies, miscalculations and unsubstantiated claims of budget cutting. 

Musk himself acknowledged that mistakes have been made during a White House Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

“One of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention.” Musk said, before adding “there was no interruption” in services. 

Even that was apparently a misstatement. The Associated Press reported that day that a USAID official said no funds for fighting the deadly virus had been released since President Trump’s Jan. 20 funding freeze on foreign aid.

A State Department spokesperson said a review of its contracts and grants was geared toward eliminating all but the ones that make America stronger, safer and more prosperous. The agency’s cuts are part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to drastically shrink the federal workforce and budget.

Ditiu questioned whether cutting funds designed for tuberculosis prevention would do that. She said “thousands and thousands” of people working to treat and prevent the disease globally stand to be laid off. She worries about work being interrupted in Mozambique, where there’s an “extremely drug resistant strain.” 

“TB is airborne. You can wear a condom, you can sleep under a bed net, you can run and exercise and eat just kale all your life. As long as you breathe, you can get TB,” Ditius said. “You can get it on a plane, in a taxi ride … it’s not enough to close the borders.”

She predicted that as organizations recalibrate and rebuild without American funds, they’ll take their purchasing power elsewhere, buying diagnostic tools and medicine from international competitors such as China.

“I honestly don’t think that anyone took the time, or wanted to listen, to explain what it means for the U.S.,” Ditiu said.

Randy Chester, a USAID staffer and vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, warned that the cuts not only hurt those abroad, but they’re going to affect Americans — and not just the government workers who are being fired.

“Every year we spend $2 billion on agriculture products in the U.S. from Midwestern farmers,” Chester said. “That’s a patriotic thing to do, helping Americans connect to new markets and helping them sell their products to new markets.”

“That should be looked at in a good light,” said Chester, who is currently on administrative leave.

Chester said the cuts will have a profound impact on the agency’s employees. He pointed to his own family.

“My wife also works at USAID, she’s also a foreign service officer, and she has received a termination letter,” Chester said. He spent the day supporting colleagues who were allotted small time windows, some as brief as 15 minutes, to clear out the desks where many had spent their careers. He said they were devoted to serving their countries.

“The big thing that I really want people to understand is USAID employees, whether you’re in the foreign service or civil service, we’re patriots. We work for the benefit of America,” said Chester.

Dan Ruetenik and Sara Cook contributed to this report.