With just one day until the U.S. Agency for International Development puts almost all its foreign aid workers on leave, some health experts are sounding the alarm about what it could mean here at home.
“All you need is a person to get on a plane with drug resistant TB, and that's very transmissible and very difficult to treat,” said Dr. Joia Mukherjee, the chief medical officer of nonprofit Partners in Health, which helps treat infectious disease around the world.
Health clinics, clean drinking water and food assistance for people in poverty are some of the many global projects at USAID that will likely soon come to a halt.
The agency announced on its website earlier this week that nearly all direct hires will be placed on leave starting Friday at midnight, except essential workers. President Donald Trump's administration has criticized USAID for what it calls wasteful spending.
Mukherjee said her group gets about 10% of its funding from USAID and creates jobs for local people in countries including Haiti.
“Those hundreds of people are community health workers, are mostly women, otherwise very poor, will lose their salary. That would lose their ability to support their children, pay for school fees, pay for food,” Mukherjee said.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said in an X post that “USAID dollars have gone into the pockets of fat cats around the globe” with Elon Musk reposting and replying, “True.”
However, a News4 analysis of data from Congress found USAID funding also directly helps American workers in the farming and shipping industries. In fiscal year 2020, USAID bought $2.1 billion of food aid from American farmers.
“We’re very supportive of it, because it's a program that does support Kansas, primarily wheat farmers, but also grain sorghum farmers,” said Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union.
Levendofsky said his members are already dealing with rising costs, the threat of increased tariffs, and lower-selling prices for their goods.
“The balance sheet is not figuring out for a lot of farmers right now. They're struggling financially, and therefore, rural America is struggling. So it is an issue,” he said.
The Trump administration also says employees stationed around the world have 30 days to return to the U.S. Workers living in foreign countries can apply for a waiver to stay longer, if they have a special circumstance like children needing to finish out the school year.
The USAID website’s memo didn’t specify which employees are considered essential.
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