One of the first federal agencies President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk have targeted in their attempt to downsize the federal government is the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID. The agency provides food in countries facing famine, HIV and other medication to people in poverty around the globe, and aids farmers and small businesses in the developing world and war-torn areas.
In the past two weeks, the Trump administration has ordered dozens of senior officials to be put on leave, laid off thousands of contractors, and frozen billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to other countries.
Till Bruett, a Wisconsin native based in Madison, works for DAI, a global development firm that contracts with USAID on international aid. He works in the financial sector, helping low-income communities of all types get access to credit.
"It's been a whirlwind of a week, and I can say for myself and my colleagues, our heads are still spinning," says Bruett, who was furloughed a week ago.
"Stop work orders are used within USAID, but usually they're used in exceptional circumstances. For instance, if there's a serious problem with the program, or if the USA wants to or needs to cancel its projects in [a particular] country, withdraw staff, because of some type of political or military conflict," Bruett says. "It's never been used in such a broad based way across all programs."
Bruett says he understands that foreign aid has historically been a difficult sell to the American people, but foreign assistance makes up less than 1% of the overall budget. Also, he says, "Much of what we're doing in foreign assistance is [preventative], trying to prevent the need to use our military and to use other emergency assistance to go into countries."
In addition to providing jobs to thousands of Americans at home and abroad, Bruett explains, USAID and the companies it contracts with have additional domestic impacts—for example, by sourcing the food it uses to feed people around the world from American farmers.
That creates demand for supply in the U.S. and helps keep crop prices stable. It can also open up new markets for exports of American agricultural products and farming equipment.
Bruett shared USAID's breakdown of how different states benefit from its projects. "There are 13 large-scale Wisconsin farmers that are fulfilling direct orders for humanitarian food assistance," he says.
There are also specific grants from USAID to institutions in the state.
"The University of Wisconsin-Madison, for instance, receives funding to train agricultural researchers around the world to help them address sustainability issues with agriculture and improve agricultural yields," he says. "And there are some nonprofits in Wisconsin—one that I know personally because I worked with [it] in the past is the World Council of Credit Unions. They do a lot of community banking services work, similar to what me and my team do at DAI, and they have historically been a partner with USAID.
Bruett says there are over 10,000 employees at USAID alone and thousands more that have worked to support USAID that are spread all around the country and all around the globe. At this point, none of them know exactly how much of USAID's work will be slashed permanently.
"And so we're faced with this like triple threat. Not only is our company going under. Our industry is being decimated, and our market is disappearing, and so it is really hard to see a way forward," Bruett says.
