It has taken President Donald Trump just two months to dismantle U.S. climate aid to other countries. Those cuts could reverberate far past his administration.
Trump and his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency have terminated more than 150 climate and clean energy contracts and grants valued at $1.2 billion managed by the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to an analysis by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The review shows that dozens of countries have been affected, from Colombia to Mozambique and Bangladesh to Fiji. Ending the assistance is expected to have severe consequences, such as preventing nations from preparing for extreme weather and responding when it hits or strengthening agricultural practices to maintain food supplies during drought, flooding and other disasters.
The cuts also stand to interrupt the shift to clean energy and hamper efforts to reduce climate pollution in countries with growing economies such as South Africa and Indonesia.
More than 80 percent of all programs at USAID have been eviscerated. United Nations officials have warned of threats such as food insecurity, disease and economic instability — all of which could drive people to seek safety in other countries, including the United States.
“Losing these programs means that the beneficiaries are more vulnerable to climate impacts, both in the near term and the long term,” said Alice Hill, former director of resilience policy under President Barack Obama and now a senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. “And if those impacts continue to increase, without greater resilience, we will see more and more people on the move.”
In response to questions about how the cuts would affect global climate action, a State Department spokesperson said, “We look forward to continuing to work with Congress on the administration’s vision for foreign assistance.”
In a statement Friday, the State Department said it had notified Congress that it would absorb certain USAID functions by July 1 and terminate those that don’t align with administration priorities.
“Thanks to President Trump, this misguided and fiscally irresponsible era is now over,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in the statement. “We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens. We are continuing essential lifesaving programs and making strategic investments that strengthen our partners and our own country.”
The cuts align with Trump’s efforts to eradicate climate action and increase domestic fossil fuel production. He has taken a hatchet to agencies and initiatives that aim to cut U.S. emissions and help poorer countries respond to rising temperatures, at a time when extreme weather is accelerating.
“The U.S. is effectively derailing other countries’ efforts to fund the transition to clean energy, not just its own, and is jeopardizing global climate resilience for decades to come,” Ashfaq Khalfan, director of climate justice at Oxfam America, said in an email.
Oxfam America, which does not receive U.S. government funding, is part of a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from shuttering USAID, one of several legal battles involving the agency.
G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former director of budget and appropriations for then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, said if the Trump administration wants to stop spending foreign aid on issues like climate change, it should submit a rescission to Congress, otherwise it risks violating laws.
Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, didn’t respond directly to questions about the effects of the cuts on global climate change.
“Less than a month into his second term, President Trump turned on the water to prevent another tragedy like the recent California wildfires, and he has urged Democrats like Gavin Newsom to adopt policies that better maintain our nation’s forests,” she said. “He will continue to protect America’s abundant natural resources while eliminating bloat across federal agencies and restoring our economic dominance.”
Lost programs
E&E News analyzed a list sent to Congress of more than 5,300 terminated contracts by searching for the words “climate” or “clean energy” in their descriptions and conducted a manual review of hundreds of programs, revealing 13 additional contracts that supported energy transitions. Of the nearly 1,000 contracts that have been retained, just five mention climate.
These are among the biggest contracts that were canceled:
- $171 million for the Green Recovery Investment Platform, which aimed to use government funding to stimulate private sector investments to cut emissions and help countries be more resilient.
- $43 million for a workforce training program in Egypt that focused on sectors that contribute to the country’s public health and climate change targets.
- $38 million for Sustainable Energy for Indonesia’s Advancing Resilience, or SINAR, which focused on cutting emissions in the country’s coal-dependent energy sector.
- $33 million for an energy program in the Philippines to cut emissions and boost renewable energy.
- $31 million to support utilities and regulators in Europe and Eurasia as the region transitions to clean energy.
- $29 million for a multicountry adaptation program focused on finding local solutions to reduce disaster risk.
- $29 million for a biodiversity program in Uganda that provided technical assistance to communities, the government and the private sector to conserve and manage wildlife and forests.
Together, those contracts had more than $300 million in obligated funding — or money the government had contractually committed to the programs.
BRAC, an international development organization based in Bangladesh, confirmed that its contract for climate resilience in three flood-prone districts was canceled. It’s still waiting on the U.S. to reimburse it for work totaling $390,000 up to January.
“The project aimed to reach 70,000 families and governments in three areas over five years, making sure they had the tools to adapt to a changing climate,” Liakath Ali, director of climate, disaster and urban programming in Bangladesh, said in an email. “Amidst rapidly worsening climate disasters, this will mean more communities will likely be unable to adapt, local governments will be less equipped to support them, and they will be more likely to be forced to migrate to cities.”
Another canceled project was meant to help more than 100,000 people across 11 countries including Yemen, Pakistan, Guatemala, Iraq and Honduras.
“It is devastating,” said Marcos Concepcion Raba, executive director of the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction. “It was really intended to put communities in the driving seat of responding to a humanitarian crisis.”
Raba said his group, which partners with grassroots organizations, has lost nearly half of its budget and had to fire 30 percent of its staff since late February.
E&E News contacted more than 20 organizations that received grants or contracts from USAID. A few said they were still trying to understand the full impact of the cuts, which were sudden and unanticipated. Many declined to comment. Several did not respond.
The cuts also risk undermining work at the United Nations, especially when paired with aid reductions by other wealthy countries like the United Kingdom.
The U.S. is the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, and the cuts to climate work aren’t as acute as ending life-saving medicine or food assistance.
But many climate programs focused on building local resources so communities could respond as climate effects intensify. Others provided technical support to help countries reduce climate pollution. The cuts are expected to hit the poorest, most vulnerable countries the hardest.
“While withdrawal of US government funding will impact various U.N. agencies, we remain confident that cities, states and businesses within the United States — along with other countries — will continue to demonstrate vision and leadership by working for the low-carbon, resilient economic growth that will create quality jobs and markets for 21st-century prosperity,” Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez, a spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general, said in response to questions from E&E News.
“It is crucial that the United States remains a leader on environmental issues,” Nino-Martinez added.
‘Everything gets harder’
Trump allies say the cuts are warranted.
“What should be and must be an effective tool of U.S. foreign policy has turned into a partisan global vehicle focused on spending money rather than achieving concrete outcomes aligned with American interests,” Max Primorac, a former USAID official who now works at the Heritage Foundation, said during a House Foreign Affairs hearing in February dubbed “The USAID Betrayal.”
Primorac, who authored the Project 2025 chapter on USAID, acknowledged the importance these programs have in countering China, preventing the spread of infectious diseases and providing life-saving aid.
“But USAID’s obsession with identity politics, gender fluidity, population control and climate fanaticism undermined these goals,” he added.
Trump critics say the administration’s efforts to cut funding overlook larger impacts.
Much of the money lays the groundwork for future investments that can create markets for U.S. companies and help avoid extreme weather, famine, migration and conflict — all destabilizing conditions that could have consequences for Americans.
Funding from USAID and the State Department accounted for about a quarter of the $11 billion former President Joe Biden’s administration delivered for international climate action in 2024, said Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, who led the climate finance team at the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change at the State Department.
The money often came as grants, which promote activities that don’t necessarily create revenues, such as strengthening infrastructure and enabling early warning systems for drought and flooding.
The elimination of that money at a time when other donors are also cutting aid is expected to challenge undermine a key outcome at last year’s global climate talks — which was negotiated after Trump was elected. Countries agreed to ratchet up public funding for poor nations to at least $300 billion a year by 2035. When private sector investments are included, that goal grows to $1.3 trillion.
To hit that mark, countries need regulations and institutions to attract business investment, said Martinez-Diaz, now director of the Sustainability, Climate and Geopolitics program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Without the U.S., everything gets harder, and it’ll take longer,” he said. “But every time you delay, it just means projects that go unfulfilled and needs that go unmet, and resilience that is not implemented.”
The Trump administration has scrutinized contracts that are tied to climate or energy programs, according to court filings. But cuts to other types of aid, such as support for health or agriculture, could affect how countries bounce back from extreme heat or storms.
They could also face graver dangers if investments in fossil fuels accelerate, analysts said.
‘The system was broken’
Current and former officials acknowledge the need to improve foreign aid. A 2024 audit by the inspector general for USAID found that the agency lacked data to determine if its climate strategy was successful. It also pointed to “weaknesses” in its processes for “awarding funds, managing performance and communicating climate change information.”
On issues such as food aid, funding often flowed to countries that were considered strategically important or prioritized support for American goods over local markets.
“The system was broken,” said Molly Brown, a research professor at the University of Maryland, who has worked on conflict, climate and agricultural development. “The problem I have is, what are they going to replace it with?”
That remains a work in progress.
“My guess is, it’s going to be very hard to find a new contract signed by USAID or State under this administration that has the word climate in it,” said Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be projects that help reduce emissions, he added, but “the question more and more should be about are new contracts being signed? What are they being signed to do?”
