Trump calls his own foreign aid cuts 'devastating,' asks for other countries to do more

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

President Donald Trump calls U.S. Agency for International Development cuts "devastating," urging other countries to contribute more.
The cuts affected South Africa's HIV response, reducing testing and monitoring efforts.
USAID disbursed $61 billion in 2022, with the U.S. as the largest humanitarian aid donor.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration's cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its aid programs worldwide have been "devastating."

Speaking beside South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House visit, Trump was asked about his cutting most foreign aid by a reporter who said the decision had significant impacts in Africa.

"It's devastating, and hopefully a lot of people are going to start spending a lot of money," Trump said in the Oval Office.

"I've talked to other nations. We want them to chip in and spend money too, and we've spent a lot. And it's a big — it's a tremendous problem going on in many countries. A lot of problems going on. The United States always gets the request for money. Nobody else helps," he said.

The State Department, which manages USAID, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration has repeatedly defended the cuts, saying they were focused on wasted funds. The gutting of the agency, largely overseen by South Africa-born businessman Elon Musk, is the subject of several federal lawsuits.

The United States is the world's largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38% of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61 billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data.

The U.S. spent half a billion dollars on South African aid in 2023, mostly on health care, the most recent data shows. Most of that funding has been withdrawn, though it is unclear exactly how much.

The cuts have had an effect on the country's response to the HIV epidemic. South Africa has the world's highest burden of HIV, with about 8 million people — 1 in 5 adults — living with the virus.

Washington was funding 17% of the country's HIV budget before the cuts. In the months since, testing and monitoring of HIV patients across South Africa has decreased, Reuters has reported.

Contributing: Trevor Hunnicutt, Gram Slattery and Daphne Psaledakis

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.