Discussion · House of Representatives
Donald S. Beyer, Jr. Democrat
“President Trump and Elon Musk cut our foreign aid and shut down USAID under false claims of saving money. These cuts have cost our government billions in lawsuits and settlements, while causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths around the world. Foreign aid protects our own national security and stops deadly diseases from spreading here. I want us to rebuild USAID and our international aid programs.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Sherman for speaking. Mr. Speaker, last year, President Trump teamed up with his trillionaire donor Elon Musk to dismantle USAID and pause or permanently cancel a large portion of our international assistance programs. This was done in the name of furthering Trump’s America First policy, but it is mostly combating mostly fictional and exaggerated claims of waste. The authors of this policy claimed that their goal was to achieve deficit reduction, to further Trump’s America First policy on largely imaginary claims of waste. Far from reducing waste, the headlong rush to shutter USAID has forced the government to set aside billions of dollars for lawsuits, pay former employees to stay at home, and settle outstanding agreements with contractors. Our national debt passed $40 trillion this week, the latest in a strong string of facts to show how little Trump and company actually care about fiscal responsibility. The decision and the chaotic and callous way it was implemented has led to needless death, suffering, and damage to our national security and international reputation. But the worst impacts have been the devastation this has inflicted on poor and sick people around the world. In defense of the aid cuts, Elon Musk claimed zero people in Africa died. Secretary Rubio likewise claimed no one has died, claiming that lifesaving aid programs would be maintained or replaced. These statements are lies, and they are insults to our intelligence. Available government data shows large reductions of spending from 2024 to 2025, such as a 48 percent cut to global health programs, 39 percent cut to the Food For Peace program, a 65 percent cut in development assistance, and a 21 percent cut to international disaster assistance. Several large-scale independent studies and reporting from numerous news outlets have shown the human toll on these reductions. I thank my colleagues who pointed out names and photographs. Let me give some examples. The Gates Foundation estimates that child deaths will rise for the first time in the 21st century in 2025, and projects that if the aid cuts continue at a similar scale, we should expect an additional 12 million child deaths by 2045--12 million kids. Harvard University’s Atul Gawande, one of the leading public health experts in the world, published an analysis nearly a year ago finding that hundreds of thousands have already died as a result of the USAID cuts, less than 10 months after they were implemented. A study published by UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health projected that the elimination of foreign aid funding last year would lead to 14 million preventable deaths by the end of this decade, over a third of them children. In a more granular report, research from Oxfam has shown that cholera cases have risen by 62 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year, just as USAID clean water and sanitation programs were cut--one-to-one correspondence. These are numbers, but each statistic represents suffering and misery that our government chose to inflict on some of the most vulnerable people in the world. I love and greatly appreciate The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. He has gone to Africa and written in heartbreaking detail about the individual human costs of aid cuts. He writes about deaths of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Uganda dying due to the lack of ordinarily available food assistance, medicine, mosquito nets, and other U.S.-provided aid. I am a Representative that serves Northern Virginia, so I have heard from hundreds of former USAID employees and their private sector partners who worked on these cut programs. Besides the justifiable outrage felt by these men and women due to how they were treated by this administration, by Elon Musk, and his band of DOGE acolytes, what has really struck me is the grief that they feel being unable to continue to serve our country and help some of the world’s most vulnerable people. They understand that U.S. international assistance is not charity. It is a critical component of our national security strategy, alongside diplomacy and defense. They reduced the risk of lethal diseases, like Ebola and the avian flu, from spreading to our shores. They promoted economic growth and democracy in developing nations, enhanced counterterrorism initiatives, and alleviated international crises and disasters. But it is up to us to build and improve what remains of our aid infrastructure. We can and we should work to reduce the risk of this happening again, and I look forward to rebuilding USAID in the years to come. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of our time, such as it is.”
Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Sherman for speaking. Mr. Speaker, last year, President Trump teamed up with his trillionaire donor Elon Musk to dismantle USAID and pause or permanently cancel a large portion of our international assistance programs. This was done in the name of furthering Trump’s America First policy, but it is mostly combating mostly fictional and exaggerated claims of waste. The authors of this policy claimed that their goal was to achieve deficit reduction, to further Trump’s America First policy on largely imaginary claims of waste. Far from reducing waste, the headlong rush to shutter USAID has forced the government to set aside billions of dollars for lawsuits, pay former employees to stay at home, and settle outstanding agreements with contractors. Our national debt passed $40 trillion this week, the latest in a strong string of facts to show how little Trump and company actually care about fiscal responsibility. The decision and the chaotic and callous way it was implemented has led to needless death, suffering, and damage to our national security and international reputation. But the worst impacts have been the devastation this has inflicted on poor and sick people around the world. In defense of the aid cuts, Elon Musk claimed zero people in Africa died. Secretary Rubio likewise claimed no one has died, claiming that lifesaving aid programs would be maintained or replaced. These statements are lies, and they are insults to our intelligence. Available government data shows large reductions of spending from 2024 to 2025, such as a 48 percent cut to global health programs, 39 percent cut to the Food For Peace program, a 65 percent cut in development assistance, and a 21 percent cut to international disaster assistance. Several large-scale independent studies and reporting from numerous news outlets have shown the human toll on these reductions. I thank my colleagues who pointed out names and photographs. Let me give some examples. The Gates Foundation estimates that child deaths will rise for the first time in the 21st century in 2025, and projects that if the aid cuts continue at a similar scale, we should expect an additional 12 million child deaths by 2045--12 million kids. Harvard University’s Atul Gawande, one of the leading public health experts in the world, published an analysis nearly a year ago finding that hundreds of thousands have already died as a result of the USAID cuts, less than 10 months after they were implemented. A study published by UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health projected that the elimination of foreign aid funding last year would lead to 14 million preventable deaths by the end of this decade, over a third of them children. In a more granular report, research from Oxfam has shown that cholera cases have risen by 62 percent in 2025 compared to the previous year, just as USAID clean water and sanitation programs were cut--one-to-one correspondence. These are numbers, but each statistic represents suffering and misery that our government chose to inflict on some of the most vulnerable people in the world. I love and greatly appreciate The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof. He has gone to Africa and written in heartbreaking detail about the individual human costs of aid cuts. He writes about deaths of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Uganda dying due to the lack of ordinarily available food assistance, medicine, mosquito nets, and other U.S.-provided aid. I am a Representative that serves Northern Virginia, so I have heard from hundreds of former USAID employees and their private sector partners who worked on these cut programs. Besides the justifiable outrage felt by these men and women due to how they were treated by this administration, by Elon Musk, and his band of DOGE acolytes, what has really struck me is the grief that they feel being unable to continue to serve our country and help some of the world’s most vulnerable people. They understand that U.S. international assistance is not charity. It is a critical component of our national security strategy, alongside diplomacy and defense. They reduced the risk of lethal diseases, like Ebola and the avian flu, from spreading to our shores. They promoted economic growth and democracy in developing nations, enhanced counterterrorism initiatives, and alleviated international crises and disasters. But it is up to us to build and improve what remains of our aid infrastructure. We can and we should work to reduce the risk of this happening again, and I look forward to rebuilding USAID in the years to come. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of our time, such as it is.