The human toll of Trump's war on aid

On the first day of his second term as U.S. president, Donald Trump signed an executive order effectively gutting USAID — the United States Agency for International Development. It's an arm of the government that, in 2024, was operating in more than 130 countries worldwide, providing food, medicine and other life-saving support.

At the time, advocates said the cuts would result in preventable deaths from starvation, malnutrition, and easily treatable diseases. Now, nearly a year later, reporting from ProPublica suggests that’s what happened, particularly in several African countries.

Anna Maria Barry-Jester, a reporter with ProPublica, breaks down her investigation into the fallout of the collapse of USAID.