‘We Are in Disbelief’: Africa Reels as U.S. Aid Agency Is Dismantled

The collapse of U.S.A.I.D. at the hands of President Trump and Elon Musk is already leaving gaping holes in vital health care and other services that millions of Africans rely on for their survival.

For decades, sub-Saharan Africa was a singular focus of American foreign aid. The continent received over $8 billion a year, money that was used to feed starving children, supply lifesaving drugs and provide wartime humanitarian assistance.

In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing to completely gut the U.S. Agency for International Aid.

“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday, accusing the agency of unspecified corruption and fraud.

A federal judge on Friday halted, for now, some elements of Mr. Trump’s attempt to shutter the agency. But the speed and shock of the administration’s actions have already led to confusion, fear and even paranoia at U.S.A.I.D. offices across Africa, a top recipient of agency funding. Workers were being fired or furloughed en masse.

As the true scale of the fallout comes into view, African governments are wondering how to fill gaping holes left in vital services, like health care and education, that until recent weeks were funded by the United States. Aid groups and United Nations bodies that feed the starving or house refugees have seen their budgets slashed in half, or worse.

By far the greatest price is being paid by ordinary Africans, millions of whom rely on American aid for their survival. But the consequences are also reverberating across an aid sector that, for better or worse, has been a pillar of Western engagement with Africa for over six decades. With the collapse of U.S.A.I.D., that entire model is badly shaken.