The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Kevin Dietsch, Getty Images)

USAID Officially Shuts Down, Leaving an Uncertain Future for International Food Aid

Some members of Congress want to move the popular Food for Peace program to the USDA, but questions remain.

July 2, 2025

July 2, 2025 – Five months after a swift and chaotic dismantling that began soon after President Trump’s inauguration, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is no more. In a statement posted to Substack, Secretary of Defense Marco Rubio said that as of July 1, “USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance.”

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Rubio said that the work USAID did was not serving American interests. “Moving forward, our assistance will be targeted and time limited,” he wrote. “We will favor those nations that have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to help themselves and will target our resources to areas where they can have a multiplier effect and catalyze durable private sector, including American companies, and global investment.”

On USAID’s last day in operation, a study published in The Lancet estimated that between 2000 and 2021, the agency’s work saved close to 92 million lives, about a third of them children under five. Researchers estimated the current funding cuts could lead to an additional 14 million deaths around the world.

While most of the lives were saved by reducing the incidence of diseases like AIDS and malaria, the study also mentioned nutritional deficiencies. During the 2024 fiscal year, USAID spent around $5 billion on food assistance, about $2 billion of which was used to purchase commodity foods from American farmers.

Food for Peace was USAID’s marquee program, and has long had bipartisan support in Congress. In February, a coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate introduced legislation to move the program to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In June, a draft of a House appropriations bill included that change, although Food for Peace’s budget was cut in half. Lawmakers are expected to start working to move the appropriations process along again after the tax bill process is over. The State Department, which has absorbed some pieces of USAID’s programming, was unable to provide comment by press time on the current status of Food for Peace.

But questions remain about whether the USDA has the right international infrastructure to administer the program, especially when the agency has also lost more than 15,000 staff members since January. In May, the agency also began canceling some grant contracts within the international food aid program it already runs.

On USAID’s last day, former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and U2 frontman Bono sent video messages to employees thanking them for work they characterized as lifesaving and reflective of American strength. (Link to this post.)

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Lisa Held is Civil Eats’ senior staff reporter and contributing editor. Read more >

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The US Capitol building, where Congress meets. (Photo credit: Andrey Denisyuk, Getty Images)

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USAID Officially Shuts Down, Leaving an Uncertain Future for International Food Aid