Humanitarian aid and food for hundreds of thousands of people affected by the civil war in Sudan. A school that’s one of the last few remaining options for women seeking higher education in Afghanistan. Ready-to-use therapeutic food for severely malnourished children in northern Nigeria. Shelters and camps for displaced people in Syria. This is a small sampling of the programs whose funding has been disrupted since President Trump and Elon Musk have attempted to all but dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and cut off the aid it distributes. This month, Opinion staff members interviewed representatives of the groups behind these programs and others that depend on the United States to support their work to promote health, fight human trafficking, address climate change, and provide so many other kinds of services to some of the most vulnerable people on earth. They told us that by freezing and withholding funds and purging personnel, the Trump administration has unleashed chaos and uncertainty and caused harm around the world. In a guest essay introducing the project, Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former U.S.A.I.D. official, argues that while the damage has been extensive, the agency and its mission are not dead yet and can still be rebuilt. If legislators don’t make that happen, he writes, they “should consider how they will explain in the coming years why America could no longer stop a disease outbreak overseas from reaching the homeland. Or why thousands of children who depend on lifesaving nutritional supplies made in American plants were left to die.” Here’s what we’re focusing on today:
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