It is also an excellent way of killing more people than you need long term when overall wealth is the most important thing bar none.
If you reduce economic growth to take care of a few extra margins now, what do you think the alternative cost would be?
Compare a 3% yearly growth to a 2.5% growth over 100 years, how many more lives would you save overall by being more than 60% richer than you would've been otherwise?
What is it about the US government that makes you think increasing overall wealth will be of any benefit to the majority. Or do you believe in trickle down economics?
"trickle down" doesn't mean anything. The economy improving obviously improves it for everyone, unless you unironically believe the median person is as poor today as in 1600. Just comparing 50 years, the median person is MUCH better off than they were then, contrary to what ignorant idiots believe.
If you can't even think why that is the case you don't understand what causes economic growth.
" The economy improving obviously improves it for everyone, unless you unironically believe the median person is as poor today as in 1600. " This is a non sequitur, and there is nothing obvious about an overall improvement in economy improving it for everyone.
It's exactly the opposite. When you help to solve their most pressing, intractable problems, they become more stable, a prerequisite for growth.
This is obvious when considered in reverse. No one suggests, for example, that we introduce a Malaria outbreak into a rich country to help their economic growth (because, so the logic would go, the rich country would get to use resources to stop the outbreak, and therefore create economic growth).
It's just the broken window parable all over again.
Let's use common sense here. Suppose someone has 3 children. Now one of them gets tuberculousis.
Ceteris Paribus, does E(growth) go up, or down? Obviously down.
The implicit counterargument to that is "Aha, but if we don't treat the disease, , in the long term, they will make their own institutions to do it, and that is better" (the "teach a man to fish" response).
I can buy the argument for textiles, because textiles are easy to make, and labor (cheaper in low-income countries) is often a large factor in production. But that's a ridiculous argument in this case. Things like producing tb drugs are incredibly high-capital-dependent industries.
A basic Ricardo trade model will show why it makes more sense for us to make the drugs. The "dependency" framework is also silly, since it often equivocates between continued postive-sum trade, and snuffing out infant industries, which isn't an issue here.
i dont want to be devils advocate here and certainly the cut to USAID was blameworthy but all the money that was cut from aid could had been given by other countries like some arab emirates or china russia france; no one of them took on themselves to save those people either so in a sense all the world leaders and businessman that did nothing here are in some grade as guilty as trump. The US is not the only country of the world who can give aid nor is trump the only one who can give out cash. i dont see you blaming the other leaders that did nothing while US was doing most of the AID. are you telling me that Trump is worse than xi xianping that did not do even a tenth of what the US did?
I think more blame needs to be put on recipient governments. I also agree with much of the article, but the world has slipped into a pattern of assuming some countries are adults expected to look after themselves while others are children, perpetually needing to be looked after. And I think this attitude prevails at both ends.
"Now, many of those defending USAID cuts hoped other countries would fill in. The opposite happened. As Lydia Gichuki notes “2025 was the first time in nearly 30 years that the U.S., the UK, France, and Germany cut their aid contributions at the same time.” This produced a roughly 17% decline in total global aid. So taking into account the follow-on from other countries, America’s actions may have an even larger death toll, perhaps in the millions annually."
These death estimates are massively overstated because they assume aid cuts translate almost mechanically into deaths, without properly accounting for domestic replacement spending, reprioritization by recipient governments, private substitution, or efficiency gains. Even worse, they ignore the long-term counterfactual. Permanent aid dependency weakens state formation by letting governments avoid the hard work of building tax capacity, functioning bureaucracies, accountable institutions, and durable domestic health systems. Foreign aid can be a short-term patch, but when it becomes structural, it can also prevent countries from developing the institutions they actually need.
The CGD estimate you cite saying US foreign aid saves 3 million lives yearly seems pretty dubious. They find that implied cost per life saved from HIV, Malaria, and Tuberculosis is $1,000-$2,000: this is significantly less than GiveWell’s best estimates and implies that GiveWell’s top recommended charity would be the the US State Department.
BB-- Since you are also cognizant of the EA recommended charities, to which should we contribute to help offset the USAID cuts? I would like to help. Thank you.
"Despite foreign aid saving millions of lives annually while taking up less than 1% of the federal budget, Washington bureaucrats made a deliberate political decision to gut it, very likely with full foreknowledge that the result would be more dead children."
By this logic, 100% of the federal budget should go to foreign aid.
Personally, I think the population of the third world is well above its carrying capacity. What we need to do is completely remove all aid and artificial boosters of the population, let the population fall to a more sustainable level, and then all the people still alive will be much happier and much more able to support themselves on their own domestic resources. It sounds harsh but given global overpopulation it is necessary.
For awhile I was thinking that saving the lives of fetuses by not instituting a nationwide Roe v. Wade (as Harris pushed for) helped significantly mitigate the USAID cuts (alternatively, that the USAID cuts, which I thought before today ended US foreign aid altogether, wiped out the benefit of saving the American babies).
But I recently found statistics showing abortions have increased since the Dobbs decision. So this is an extremely powerful, unmitigated argument that Trump’s presidency is bad.
I feel like foreign aid is something that most voters don't care about at all, even though it should be one of the issues they care most about.
I don't see why you should support a system that creates long-term dependency (same with many welfare systems in the west).
Letting them starve to death or die of preventable diseases is an excellently way of preventing long term dependency.
It is also an excellent way of killing more people than you need long term when overall wealth is the most important thing bar none.
If you reduce economic growth to take care of a few extra margins now, what do you think the alternative cost would be?
Compare a 3% yearly growth to a 2.5% growth over 100 years, how many more lives would you save overall by being more than 60% richer than you would've been otherwise?
What is it about the US government that makes you think increasing overall wealth will be of any benefit to the majority. Or do you believe in trickle down economics?
"trickle down" doesn't mean anything. The economy improving obviously improves it for everyone, unless you unironically believe the median person is as poor today as in 1600. Just comparing 50 years, the median person is MUCH better off than they were then, contrary to what ignorant idiots believe.
If you can't even think why that is the case you don't understand what causes economic growth.
" The economy improving obviously improves it for everyone, unless you unironically believe the median person is as poor today as in 1600. " This is a non sequitur, and there is nothing obvious about an overall improvement in economy improving it for everyone.
It's exactly the opposite. When you help to solve their most pressing, intractable problems, they become more stable, a prerequisite for growth.
This is obvious when considered in reverse. No one suggests, for example, that we introduce a Malaria outbreak into a rich country to help their economic growth (because, so the logic would go, the rich country would get to use resources to stop the outbreak, and therefore create economic growth).
It's just the broken window parable all over again.
There is no evidence for this at all. The malaria example ia a fiction that can't happen in the real wolrd so it isn't useful.
Let's use common sense here. Suppose someone has 3 children. Now one of them gets tuberculousis.
Ceteris Paribus, does E(growth) go up, or down? Obviously down.
The implicit counterargument to that is "Aha, but if we don't treat the disease, , in the long term, they will make their own institutions to do it, and that is better" (the "teach a man to fish" response).
I can buy the argument for textiles, because textiles are easy to make, and labor (cheaper in low-income countries) is often a large factor in production. But that's a ridiculous argument in this case. Things like producing tb drugs are incredibly high-capital-dependent industries.
A basic Ricardo trade model will show why it makes more sense for us to make the drugs. The "dependency" framework is also silly, since it often equivocates between continued postive-sum trade, and snuffing out infant industries, which isn't an issue here.
i dont want to be devils advocate here and certainly the cut to USAID was blameworthy but all the money that was cut from aid could had been given by other countries like some arab emirates or china russia france; no one of them took on themselves to save those people either so in a sense all the world leaders and businessman that did nothing here are in some grade as guilty as trump. The US is not the only country of the world who can give aid nor is trump the only one who can give out cash. i dont see you blaming the other leaders that did nothing while US was doing most of the AID. are you telling me that Trump is worse than xi xianping that did not do even a tenth of what the US did?
mind you that i not critizasing your critique of Trump but that you arent doing a critique of all the other leaders
I think more blame needs to be put on recipient governments. I also agree with much of the article, but the world has slipped into a pattern of assuming some countries are adults expected to look after themselves while others are children, perpetually needing to be looked after. And I think this attitude prevails at both ends.
Some countries are adults while others are children. This is the way of the world.
"Now, many of those defending USAID cuts hoped other countries would fill in. The opposite happened. As Lydia Gichuki notes “2025 was the first time in nearly 30 years that the U.S., the UK, France, and Germany cut their aid contributions at the same time.” This produced a roughly 17% decline in total global aid. So taking into account the follow-on from other countries, America’s actions may have an even larger death toll, perhaps in the millions annually."
These death estimates are massively overstated because they assume aid cuts translate almost mechanically into deaths, without properly accounting for domestic replacement spending, reprioritization by recipient governments, private substitution, or efficiency gains. Even worse, they ignore the long-term counterfactual. Permanent aid dependency weakens state formation by letting governments avoid the hard work of building tax capacity, functioning bureaucracies, accountable institutions, and durable domestic health systems. Foreign aid can be a short-term patch, but when it becomes structural, it can also prevent countries from developing the institutions they actually need.
The CGD estimate you cite saying US foreign aid saves 3 million lives yearly seems pretty dubious. They find that implied cost per life saved from HIV, Malaria, and Tuberculosis is $1,000-$2,000: this is significantly less than GiveWell’s best estimates and implies that GiveWell’s top recommended charity would be the the US State Department.
BB-- Since you are also cognizant of the EA recommended charities, to which should we contribute to help offset the USAID cuts? I would like to help. Thank you.
A wealthy banker was riding in his limousine when he noticed two women by the roadside eating grass.
Disturbed, he told his driver to stop and stepped out to investigate.
“Why are you eating grass?” he asked one of the women.
“We don’t have any money for food,” she replied sadly. “This is all we can eat.”
“Well, come with me to my house,” the banker said kindly. “I’ll feed you.”
“But sir,” the woman said, “I have a husband and two children over there under the tree.”
“Bring them along,” the banker replied.
He then turned to the second woman. “You come too.”
“But sir,” she said, “I also have a husband... and six children!”
“That’s fine,” the banker answered. “Bring them all.”
Everyone squeezed into the limousine. It wasn’t easy, even in such a large car.
As they drove away, one of the men said, “Sir, you’re incredibly generous. Thank you for helping us.”
The banker smiled.
“Happy to help,” he said. “You’re going to love my place... the grass is almost a foot tall.”
Sent from my iPad
"Despite foreign aid saving millions of lives annually while taking up less than 1% of the federal budget, Washington bureaucrats made a deliberate political decision to gut it, very likely with full foreknowledge that the result would be more dead children."
By this logic, 100% of the federal budget should go to foreign aid.
By your logic if we can't save everyone we shouldn't save anyone.
Nonsense. We are perfectly capable of describing the scope of “anyone”.
It's also perfectly possible to define what per cent of federal budget you give too, but that's not what you said.
Personally, I think the population of the third world is well above its carrying capacity. What we need to do is completely remove all aid and artificial boosters of the population, let the population fall to a more sustainable level, and then all the people still alive will be much happier and much more able to support themselves on their own domestic resources. It sounds harsh but given global overpopulation it is necessary.
Hi, Thanos
For awhile I was thinking that saving the lives of fetuses by not instituting a nationwide Roe v. Wade (as Harris pushed for) helped significantly mitigate the USAID cuts (alternatively, that the USAID cuts, which I thought before today ended US foreign aid altogether, wiped out the benefit of saving the American babies).
But I recently found statistics showing abortions have increased since the Dobbs decision. So this is an extremely powerful, unmitigated argument that Trump’s presidency is bad.
https://societyfp.org/research/wecount/wecount-june-2025-data/