Obama and Bush Condemn Closure of USAID as Report Warns of 14m Extra Deaths

Barack Obama and George W. Bush have criticized the closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), as a study warned it could result in 14 million additional deaths by 2030.

- Kat Lay

The former US presidents made rare public criticisms of the Trump administration as they took part in a video farewell for USAID staffers on Monday, on its last day as an independent organization.

In March, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced that 83% of USAID's programs had been canceled. The agency is being folded into the state department, where it is to be replaced by a successor organization called America First.

A study published in the Lancet found that the cuts could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, a third of them children.

USAID funding for healthcare, nutrition, humanitarian aid, development, education, and related sectors have helped to prevent more than 91 million deaths in low- and middle-income countries over the past two decades, the multinational group of researchers calculated.

The study concluded: "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."

For many of the world's poorer countries, "the resulting shock would be similar in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict," they said, but "would stem from a conscious and avoidable policy choice."