U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Monday, March 10, that the Trump administration had completed its six-week review of programs within the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and will shutter 83% of the programs. The rest of the programs will be folded into the U.S. Department of State.
Rubio posted a statement to his personal X account, claiming “The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.”
USAID was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, intending to unite several foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency. In fiscal year 2023 — the latest year with published data — the U.S. government allocated $71.9 billion in foreign aid, with $43.79 billion earmarked for USAID. However, the USAID budget total is only about 0.6% of U.S. annual government spending.
Over the last six decades, the agency has been involved with improving global health, assisting with disaster relief, protecting democracies abroad and increasing education for girls. Notable projects include the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has provided life-saving HIV treatment and prevention services; the President’s Malaria Initiative, which has contributed to reducing malaria-related mortality; and the Global Health Security Agenda, which helps countries prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease threats.
USAID has been increasingly scrutinized by the Trump administration, who put nearly all USAID employees on leave on Feb. 23 and instituted a 90 day review on all foreign aid programs on Jan. 20.
In an email to the Hopkins community on March 5, President Ronald J. Daniels stated over $800 million in USAID grants at Jhpiego, the School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs and the School of Medicine have been terminated, causing these programs to cease grant-funded operations.
“Because of these funding terminations, we are in the process of winding down USAID grant-related activities in Baltimore and internationally,” Daniels wrote.
Dr. Thomas Quinn, founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health, commented on the federal cuts in an email to The News-Letter.
“There is no doubt that faculty and students are both feeling the impact of funding cuts to NIH grants and in particular the loss of USAID funding,” Quinn wrote. “We are having daily calls with our faculty and their collaborators, and each day brings a new unpleasant surprise in the form of another cancellation of a contract or grant. No new grants from NIH have been issued for the last few months and will unlikely be issued until mid-summer at best.”
The News-Letter spoke with several faculty and staff members at the School of Public Health whose work has been affected by the termination of USAID grants or reductions in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These interviews took place prior to Rubio’s announcement on Monday, and may not reflect the full extent to which projects have been impacted.
Canceled grants and projects
Dr. Peter Winch — a professor of International Health affiliated with the Center for Global Health — studies water use, sanitation practices and environmental sustainability. He discussed two of his government-funded projects that have been canceled in an email to The News-Letter.
Winch stated that the people most affected by these cuts are the populations served by the projects as well as the project staff. His first project involved reducing lead cookware in Bangladesh, which was funded by the U.S. Department of State.
“Lead is a potent neurotoxin, and can cause reduced cognitive development in young children,” Winch wrote. “Our investigations have shown that lead is incorporated into cookware... when scrap metal is incorporated into the flat aluminum disks that are the inputs for manufacturing of cookware. Those who manufacture cookware... buy aluminum disks, and see that they look new and shiny. They assume that all is well but over time, lead leaches from the cookware into food, which then is ingested by families.”
At the time of the program’s cancellation, Winch’s team had identified and characterized the supply chain responsible for the production of lead-contaminated cookware and were preparing to share their findings with the Bangladeshi government. However, the loss in federal funding has set back the project significantly, worrying Winch about the numerous families who will suffer as a result.
“Once developing nervous systems are harmed by lead, there is no way to undo the harm,” he stated.
In Winch’s second project, supported by USAID, he worked with government-affiliated and non-governmental organizations to increase agricultural productivity in regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This work has led to the re-establishment of rural agriculture in the region and the reduction of malnutrition in women and children, especially in regions affected by tribal conflicts.
Due to the shuttering of the project, Winch worries that there will be lasting impacts, even if the projects are able to be restarted.
“We have lost much time and effort, and it will prove challenging to reestablish the relationships and local capacity that had been established,” Winch wrote.
Radha Ranjan, a Research and Evaluation Officer at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, part of the School of Public Health’s Health Behavior and Society Department, outlined the current changes taking place. Most of the programs, which inspire the implementation of healthier behaviors, take place internationally in countries like Tanzania, Uganda and the Philippines.
Ranjan estimated that 90–95% of the Center’s work with varying stages of completion were impacted. One project, called Breakthrough ACTION, which focused on topics like malaria, family planning and reproductive health, education and nutrition, was nearing completion when the executive orders were signed.
In an interview with The News-Letter, Ranjan stated that these orders halted projects that were nearly complete.
“The executive orders prevented us from sharing some of the project’s research and archiving the data in publicly accessible databases. We had planned major dissemination events to ensure that the knowledge gained could be used by other organizations. But those events were abruptly canceled, so much of that valuable information may not reach the broader public health community,” she said.
On the other hand, projects that were being planned were prevented from officially starting.
“We had a five-year project planned on knowledge management — essentially creating resource hubs for professionals in social and behavior change to share insights and best practices. That project was completely canceled before it even began,” she added.
Ranjan emphasized the potential long-term consequences in addition to higher disease burdens and unnecessary, premature deaths.
“When communities are surveyed and engaged in the early stages of a project but then see no follow-through, it creates distrust,” she said. “People feel like they were used for data collection but didn’t receive any real help. That damages future efforts and makes it harder to build credibility when trying to implement new programs down the line.”
Lastly, Ranjan discussed the effects on the Center’s members, and she stated how many of her colleagues who have spent years building expertise in social and behavior change are now facing unemployment.
Speaking on the impact of the funding cuts, Ranjan underscored the deep sense of loss felt by those in the field.
“[For many of us,] this work isn’t just a job — it’s a mission,” she emphasized. “We care deeply about the communities we serve, and it’s heartbreaking to know that those people are the collateral damage of these funding cuts.”
Impact on students
In an email to The News-Letter, Lisa Folda — the practicum and alumni partnerships manager for the Department of International Health at the School of Public Health — described the impact of the recent developments on graduate students.
“There is certainly stress about job searching for those approaching graduation, particularly since there are recently dismissed federal workers with more experience who may now also be competing for the same positions,” she wrote.
In particular, Folda highlighted the School of Public Health’s practicum requirement, where a student gains hands-on experience in their field alongside experienced professionals, as well as similar requirements in other departments.
“That process is not unlike a job search — it uses a lot of the same skills, including networking and informational interviews,” she wrote. “It can be stressful for some students in any given year, but the news cycle is adding a level of concern — are all the programs I’m interested in being frozen? Where will the funding come from? Will I be able to find something in time? What could change for me as an international student?”
Folda also discussed the effect of the current circumstances’ uncertainty on the students.
“We still don’t entirely know how things will play out, so it is something of a waiting game. Sitting with ambiguity can be hard,“ she wrote. “The students are learning and growing — being adaptable, being patient, thinking creatively and collaboratively... We — the department, the School, the University, our many remarkable alumni — are committed to supporting them as we all move through challenging times.”
Shirlene John contributed reporting to this article.
