A year after the Trump administration began dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a new round of cuts is set to end all American humanitarian funding to seven African countries – Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. The decision, revealed through an internal State Department email obtained by The Atlantic, marks a dramatic escalation in Washington’s withdrawal from the continent’s most vulnerable populations.
What makes this round particularly striking is that every program now slated for cancellation had previously survived earlier reviews specifically because it was classified as “lifesaving” under the administration’s own standards. The programs – covering food aid, emergency nutrition, tuberculosis treatment, and support for displaced populations – were up for renewal through September but will instead be allowed to expire.
The rationale offered in the February 12 email to officials in the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs is blunt: there is “no strong nexus between the humanitarian response and U.S. national interests.”
The numbers are staggering. Across the seven affected nations, at least 6.2 million people are currently facing what the United Nations classifies as “extreme or catastrophic conditions.” In Somalia alone, nearly 6.5 million people are expected to hit crisis-level food insecurity by the end of March, driven by drought, conflict, and the compounding effect of earlier U.S. aid reductions.
The consequences are already materializing. Hundreds of health and nutrition centers in Somalia have shut down following last year’s steep cuts. Doctors Without Borders reports that deaths among severely malnourished children under five have increased by 44% at a regional hospital it supports. Alight, a Minnesota-based nonprofit, says it will have to close more than a dozen health facilities in Somalia within the coming week, leaving as many as 200,000 people without any access to healthcare.
“Cutting lifesaving aid in the midst of famine and war is morally indefensible,” said Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of Alight.
The email also confirms that the U.S. will no longer allow American taxpayer dollars to flow to these seven countries through the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Previously, the U.S. placed significant contributions into the UN’s global humanitarian pool and trusted OCHA to allocate it. That channel is now closed for these nations. The administration announced a $2 billion commitment for UN-managed humanitarian financing in 2026 – far below typical U.S. contributions – under a redesigned framework targeting only 17 countries, none of which include the seven being cut off.
Since January 2025, 83% of USAID programs have been purged. Sub-Saharan Africa, the world’s second-largest beneficiary of USAID after Ukraine, received roughly 40% of the agency’s budget in 2023. The three largest spending categories were humanitarian aid (47%), health (38%), and economic development (8%).
Nine other African nations – Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, South Sudan, and Sudan – are not being cut off entirely but will see their funding redirected under reworked arrangements. The State Department says it is “responsibly moving programming onto new mechanisms” with longer performance periods and updated oversight terms, including new bilateral health-financing agreements with some governments. But aid organizations say replacement funding remains deeply uncertain, and the transition timeline is unclear.
Critics note a pattern in which countries are selected for continued support: those that offer strategic value – whether through mineral resources, deportation agreements, or geopolitical leverage – tend to retain some funding, while those without such assets are cut loose. Six of the seven nations losing all aid fall into the latter category.
The Geopolitical Vacuum
The withdrawal carries implications that extend well beyond immediate humanitarian impact. Analysts warn that sudden aid exits can destabilize already fragile regions, increase displacement flows, and shift the burden onto local systems with limited fiscal capacity to absorb it.
The timing is particularly consequential. China has been aggressively expanding its footprint across Africa, committing $50 billion at the 2024 China-Africa summit in Beijing. With U.S. influence receding, Beijing is positioning itself not just as a resource extractor but as a development partner – filling precisely the gap that Washington is creating.
The African Development Fund, the concessional financing arm of the African Development Bank that supports the continent’s poorest countries, is also facing U.S. funding cuts. The Trump administration plans to reduce its $4 billion pledge to the World Bank’s International Development Association by $800 million, or 20%.
For African governments, the message is clear: the era of dependable U.S. development partnership is over, at least for now. The question is whether the continent’s own institutions, along with alternative partners, can move fast enough to prevent the most catastrophic outcomes – and what the long-term cost of this retreat will be for American influence on a continent of 1.4 billion people that is only growing in strategic importance.
