The recent decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has rocked the world of nongovernmental organizations, south of the border and beyond.

On Jan. 24, one of the first orders of the new U.S. administration was to place a freeze on USAID, the principal agency of the American government to provide foreign aid. Plans were also announced to lay off all but 600 of 10,000 USAID positions, and the agency was rolled into the administration of the Secretary of State.

Under the auspices of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Trump administration understands the reorganization as making good on election promises to root out “waste, fraud and abuse.”

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In 2023, USAID administered a budget of $40 billion. The bulk of the funds are distributed to United Nations and international nongovernmental organizations and development contractors and consequently the temporary freeze has had a knock-on effect on Canadian-based groups.

 “The international aid provided by the United States is about 30 per cent of all international aid worldwide. So even if you’re not getting directly funded by the U.S. it’s impactful,” said Quebec Association of International Cooperation (AQOCI) policy analyst Denis Côté. 

The reaction to this stunning move by the incoming administration of Donald Trump has been mixed in Canada. Many Canadian aid organizations have been left scrambling and are calling for the government’s help to make up the shortfall. Yet other organizations are calling for a similar ruthless audit of the Canada’s own foreign aid funding.

Andy Harrington, executive director of Canadian Foodgrains Bank, wrote in a Feb. 13 press release that global starvation is the inevitable result of the scuppering of the 64-year-old agency by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

“Without the massive financial commitment of USAID to provide access to food for millions of people, it's inevitable that many more people around the world will go hungry, and many more will starve,” said Harrington.

Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) has reported that much of its work has come to a halt because of the shut-down. According to a Feb. 6 post to its website, JRS says the “funding freeze required work to stop immediately, affecting… operations in nine countries across the world.”

Canadian Foodgrains Bank is asking the Canadian government to step in.

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“Now is the time for Canada to continue our commitment to global cooperation and stability and increase our efforts to help in emergencies — not back down from our responsibility to our global neighbours,” said Harrington.

One of the White House stated rationales for the funding freeze is to provide an opportunity to scrutinize the ideological motivations behind the schema. On Feb. 5, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt listed several “crap” projects, including $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia and $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru, as examples of such left-leaning bias at work in development funding.

There are those in Canada that seem a similar pattern in foreign aid funding by our government. Franco Terrazzano, director of Canadian Taxpayers Federation, would welcome a similar audit of the Canadian books and says that Canada doesn’t require a DOGE-style offensive to do so. 

“We should cut waste, not because the Americans are doing it. We should cut Government of Canada waste because that will make life better for Canadians. Global Affairs Canada (GAC) spending 8,800 bucks on a sex toy show in Germany doesn't help Canadian families put food on the table,” Terrazzano told The Catholic Register.

“What Canada needs,” said Terrazzanno, “is for our own finance department to open the books in all these different departments, go line by line and take a chainsaw to all this waste. From sex toy shows in Germany to a $9,900 Lego set, Global Affairs Canada may be the worst offender in the entire federal government of Canada. And that's saying a lot.”

Harrington and other charitable organizations are calling for Canada to step in to the funding gap to display Canadian values abroad.

“Maintaining or even increasing our investment into international aid reinforces Canada’s reputation as a country that stands up for the values that make the world a better place,” said Harrington. 

At the same time, voices as diverse as Terrazzano and former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney are questioning the Canadian values showcased by GAC.

“Global Affairs Canada spent $7.2 million for a ‘gender responsive systems approach to universal health care in the Philippines.’ When someone who's been waiting for months, perhaps even years, for a hip replacement, and they see their government wasting their money like this, you can bet that they're going to be furious about it,” said Terrazzano.

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At a Jan. 30 event entitled “Reclaiming Canada’s Foreign Policy,” Mulroney said that Canada has been “engaged in policies of overturning and undermining cultures that we don't understand and don't seem to respect."

“This is doing real damage at the community level in societies where communities are cohesive and important. It is also doing damage to Canada's reputation,” said Mulroney.