USAID cuts may cause over 14 million additional deaths
Deep funding cuts to the US Agency for International Development and its potential dismantling could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal.
President Donald Trump's administration has made funding cuts to USAID and its aid programs worldwide in what the US government says is part of its broader plan to remove wasteful spending.
The research was published on Monday, the same day former US presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush delivered rare open criticism of the Trump administration - and singer Bono recited a poem - in an emotional video farewell with staffers of the USAID.
Obama called the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID "a colossal mistake".
Speaking in a recorded statement, he offered assurances to the aid and development workers.
"Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come," he told them.
Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organisation, created by president John F Kennedy as a peaceful way of promoting US national security by boosting goodwill and prosperity abroad.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered USAID absorbed into the State Department from Tuesday.
USAID funding has had a crucial role in improving global health, primarily directed toward low and middle-income countries, particularly African nations, according to the study.
The study estimated that over the past two decades, USAID-funded programs had prevented more than 91 million deaths globally, including 30 million deaths among children.
Projections suggest that ongoing deep funding cuts - combined with the potential dismantling of the agency - could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths among children younger than five, the study said.
Washington is the world's largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38 per cent of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $US61 billion ($A93 billion) in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data.
"Our estimates show that, unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030," the study said.
USAID was one of the first and most fiercely targeted for government-cutting by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, with staffers abruptly locked out of systems and offices and terminated by mass emailing.
Trump claimed the agency was run by "radical left lunatics" and rife with "tremendous fraud." Musk called it "a criminal organisation."
Rubio said the Trump administration cancelled over 80 per cent of all programs at USAID following a six-week review.
The remaining approximately 1000 programs, he said, would now be administered "more effectively" under the US State Department and in consultation with Congress.
with AP
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Trump's comment, made in a social media post on Monday, comes as Tokyo scrambles to convince the US to scrap a 25 per cent tariff on Japanese cars and a 24 per cent reciprocal tariff on other Japanese imports. The reciprocal tariff has been paused until July 9, but Japan has yet to secure a trade deal after nearly three months of negotiations. While the auto sector is Japan's top employer and exporter, the farm sector has traditionally been an important voting bloc for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party, which faces key upper house elections on July 20. "I have repeatedly stated that agriculture is the foundation of the nation," top trade negotiator and Economy Minister Ryosei Akazawa told a press conference on Tuesday. "In negotiations with the United States, our stance remains unchanged: We will not engage in talks that would sacrifice the agricultural sector," he said, adding that he would continue to negotiate with his US counterparts to protect Japan's national interests. Akazawa, who returned from his seventh trip to Washington a few days ago, declined to say whether rice was part of those discussions. Trump wrote on Truth Social that Japan's reluctance to import American-grown rice was a sign that countries have become "spoiled with respect to the United States of America". "I have great respect for Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage," he wrote. Japan has in fact imported historically high volumes of US rice in recent months as domestically grown rice has skyrocketed in price since last year, hurting consumers. But Tokyo caps tariff-free imports of staple rice - which is consumed at meals as opposed to rice used for feed or ingredients in other products - at 100,000 metric tonnes a year and imposes a levy of 341 yen ($2.37) per kg for anything beyond that. That amount is a fraction of Japan's total annual consumption of about seven million tonnes. While Farm Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has lamented the influx of foreign rice as a threat to Japan's food security, the government has brought forward a tender usually held in September for this year's first 30,000 tonnes of tariff-free staple rice imports as part of efforts to lower domestic prices. with AP Japan won't sacrifice its agricultural sector as part of its tariff talks with the United States, its top negotiator says, after President Donald Trump complained that the key Asian ally isn't buying American rice. Trump's comment, made in a social media post on Monday, comes as Tokyo scrambles to convince the US to scrap a 25 per cent tariff on Japanese cars and a 24 per cent reciprocal tariff on other Japanese imports. The reciprocal tariff has been paused until July 9, but Japan has yet to secure a trade deal after nearly three months of negotiations. While the auto sector is Japan's top employer and exporter, the farm sector has traditionally been an important voting bloc for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party, which faces key upper house elections on July 20. "I have repeatedly stated that agriculture is the foundation of the nation," top trade negotiator and Economy Minister Ryosei Akazawa told a press conference on Tuesday. "In negotiations with the United States, our stance remains unchanged: We will not engage in talks that would sacrifice the agricultural sector," he said, adding that he would continue to negotiate with his US counterparts to protect Japan's national interests. Akazawa, who returned from his seventh trip to Washington a few days ago, declined to say whether rice was part of those discussions. Trump wrote on Truth Social that Japan's reluctance to import American-grown rice was a sign that countries have become "spoiled with respect to the United States of America". "I have great respect for Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage," he wrote. Japan has in fact imported historically high volumes of US rice in recent months as domestically grown rice has skyrocketed in price since last year, hurting consumers. But Tokyo caps tariff-free imports of staple rice - which is consumed at meals as opposed to rice used for feed or ingredients in other products - at 100,000 metric tonnes a year and imposes a levy of 341 yen ($2.37) per kg for anything beyond that. That amount is a fraction of Japan's total annual consumption of about seven million tonnes. While Farm Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has lamented the influx of foreign rice as a threat to Japan's food security, the government has brought forward a tender usually held in September for this year's first 30,000 tonnes of tariff-free staple rice imports as part of efforts to lower domestic prices. with AP Japan won't sacrifice its agricultural sector as part of its tariff talks with the United States, its top negotiator says, after President Donald Trump complained that the key Asian ally isn't buying American rice. Trump's comment, made in a social media post on Monday, comes as Tokyo scrambles to convince the US to scrap a 25 per cent tariff on Japanese cars and a 24 per cent reciprocal tariff on other Japanese imports. The reciprocal tariff has been paused until July 9, but Japan has yet to secure a trade deal after nearly three months of negotiations. While the auto sector is Japan's top employer and exporter, the farm sector has traditionally been an important voting bloc for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's Liberal Democratic Party, which faces key upper house elections on July 20. "I have repeatedly stated that agriculture is the foundation of the nation," top trade negotiator and Economy Minister Ryosei Akazawa told a press conference on Tuesday. "In negotiations with the United States, our stance remains unchanged: We will not engage in talks that would sacrifice the agricultural sector," he said, adding that he would continue to negotiate with his US counterparts to protect Japan's national interests. Akazawa, who returned from his seventh trip to Washington a few days ago, declined to say whether rice was part of those discussions. Trump wrote on Truth Social that Japan's reluctance to import American-grown rice was a sign that countries have become "spoiled with respect to the United States of America". "I have great respect for Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage," he wrote. Japan has in fact imported historically high volumes of US rice in recent months as domestically grown rice has skyrocketed in price since last year, hurting consumers. But Tokyo caps tariff-free imports of staple rice - which is consumed at meals as opposed to rice used for feed or ingredients in other products - at 100,000 metric tonnes a year and imposes a levy of 341 yen ($2.37) per kg for anything beyond that. That amount is a fraction of Japan's total annual consumption of about seven million tonnes. While Farm Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has lamented the influx of foreign rice as a threat to Japan's food security, the government has brought forward a tender usually held in September for this year's first 30,000 tonnes of tariff-free staple rice imports as part of efforts to lower domestic prices. with AP
