US President Donald Trump called his own foreign aid cuts “devastating” during a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
According to Reuters, Trumpon Wednesday, May 21, 2025, slammed his own administration's cut to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its worldwide programmes as “devastating” as he urged other countries to contribute.
Speaking beside Ramaphosa during his White House visit, Trump was asked about his administration’s cutting of most of the foreign aid decisions that had impacted Africa.
He replied, “It is devastating, and hopefully a lot of people are going to start spending a lot of money. I have 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 is a tremendous problem going on in many countries. A lot of problems are going on. The United States always gets the request for money. Nobody else helps," he told reporters at the Oval Office.
World’s largest aid donor
The United States is the largest humanitarian aid donor in the world, amounting to at least 38% of all contributions recorded by the United Nations.
As per the government data US distributed $61 billion in foreign aid during 2024, and over half of the contributions were made via USAID. However, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in its effort made major cuts to the foreign aid and repeatedly defended it.
Talking specifically about South Africa, according to the most recent data US spent half a billion dollars on its aid in 2023, with most of it on healthcare.
South Africa has the world's highest burden of HIV, with about 8 million people living with the virus, but the AIDS cut has affected the country's response to the HIV epidemic.
