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Oxfam Warns Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Could Help Kill More Than 9 Million People by 2030
"Governments must restore their aid budgets, and shore up the global humanitarian system that faces its most serious crisis in decades," said an advocate with the international charity Oxfam.
Apr 10, 2026
The global anti-poverty group Oxfam International warned this week that US President Donald Trump’s decision to slash foreign aid by more than half could kill nearly 10 million people by the end of the decade.
Responding to new data released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showing the largest annual drop in the history of official development assistance, Oxfam said “wealthy governments are turning their backs on the lives of millions of women, men, and children in the Global South.”
The OECD released preliminary data on international aid that was provided last year by member countries of the organization's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), finding the largest annual drop in the history of official development assistance.
OECD member countries provided $174.3 billion in aid last year, according to the new data, representing 0.26% of the countries' combined gross national income.
In 2024, the countries sent $215.1 billion, or 0.34% of their gross national income to developing countries, including across the Global South—helping to provide nutritional assistance and healthcare initiatives among other programs.
US foreign aid spending dropped by 56.9% after Trump dismantled the US Agency for International Development, cut smaller aid programs, and pushed Congress to rescind previously approved foreign assistance.
"At a time when aid cuts are already driving instability and fostering greater inequality, government donors are cutting life-saving aid budgets while financing conflict and militarization."
Overall, wealthy OECD countries provided 23.1% less in foreign aid last year than they did in 2024—a greater decline than what the Institute of Global Health in Barcelona projected in February when it released a study in The Lancet, evaluating the impact of development assistance funding declines around the world.
The institute found that aid cuts in 2025 alone, which it assumed would represent a 21% decrease in funding, would lead to 695,238 excess deaths. If cuts continued at the same rate, an estimated 9,416,417 people could die of preventable diseases like malaria and AIDS, starvation, and other impacts by 2030.
The drop in foreign aid spending would suggest even more people could be killed by the cuts over the next four years.
“We are in a time of increasing humanitarian needs; strong pressures on the poorest and most fragile countries; and facing growing global uncertainties and massive insecurity," said Carsten Staur, chair of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), which compiled the data. "In this situation, the world needs more ODA, not less—to help fight extreme poverty, improve resilience, and mobilize more private resources."
Trump's cuts helped make Germany the largest provider of development assistance for the first time ever, providing $29.1 billion to countries in need. The US sent $29 billion while the United Kingdom provided $17.2 billion, Japan sent $16.2 billion, and France sent $14.5 billion. All five of the top ODA providers reduced their foreign aid spending, accounting for 95.7% of the total decline.
Eight out of the DAC's 34 member countries either maintained or increased their development aid spending, and four countries—Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden—exceeded the United Nations' target of spending 0.7% of their gross national income on ODA.
Didier Jacobs, development finance lead for Oxfam, emphasized that while "recklessly" cutting foreign aid, "the Trump administration has been preparing to ask Congress for tens of billions in additional funding for bombs, ammunition, and other military equipment relating to its unlawful war against Iran."
"At a time when aid cuts are already driving instability and fostering greater inequality, government donors are cutting life-saving aid budgets while financing conflict and militarization. Cuts from donors including Germany, France and the UK will be felt by the world’s poorest," said Jacobs.
In addition to slashing military spending instead of crucial foreign aid, he said, "there are other ways to find tens of billions, such as by taxing the $2.84 trillions of dollars that the super-rich hide in tax havens.”
"Governments must restore their aid budgets," he said, "and shore up the global humanitarian system that faces its most serious crisis in decades."
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Trump's Illegal Iran War to Push US Inflation Sharply Higher, OECD Projects
"Every single one of this administration's policies is doing what it can to raise prices," said one critic.
Mar 26, 2026
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Thursday released a report projecting that President Donald Trump's unconstitutional war with Iran will sharply increase inflation in the US this year.
According to OECD, the disruption in energy markets caused by the war means that "inflation pressures will persist for longer," with inflation in G20 nations "now expected to be higher in 2026 than previously projected."
OECD projects that inflation in the US, which was previously seen coming in at 2.6% in 2026, will instead rise to 4.2% this year thanks in large part to the war, which has spiked prices for oil, gasoline, diesel fuel, and fertilizer.
The report also warns that these numbers could get even worse if the Iran conflict drags on and the Strait of Hormuz remains shut for a prolonged period.
"Further disruptions to trade in the Persian Gulf could also have negative effects on a broader range of products in global supply chains," OECD writes. "For example, ongoing constraints to fertilizer supply could increase global food prices, with potentially serious impacts on household finances and inflation expectations. Furthermore, reduced supply of sulphur, helium or aluminium could impede production in a range of industries."
More ominously, the report finds that "prolonged disruptions to energy supply and growth, or lower-than-expected returns from net AI investment, or rising losses in private capital markets, could all trigger more widespread risk repricing in financial markets," with the result being a higher risk of default across "multiple credit products" and an evaporation of economic liquidity.
Asa Johansson, director of policy studies at OECD, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the organization's forecast is "highly uncertain" at this point because "we don’t know the breadth and the duration of this energy shock" caused by the war.
Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress, expressed astonishment at the Trump administration's economic mismanagement in launching the Iran war, which came at a time when polling has consistently shown that affordability is the top concern for US voters.
"Every single one of this administration's policies is doing what it can to raise prices," wrote Hoops, "for a political goal that they have yet to coherently articulate, let alone have any chance at achieving."
Phillips O'Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, argued that the OECD's inflation forecast was yet another nail in the Republican Party's chances of retaining control of Congress this year.
"It’s going to be so much fun watching the GOP run on 'affordability' in 2026," O'Brien wrote.
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Victory for Corporate Tax Dodgers as OECD Approves Watered-Down Global Minimum Tax
“The Trump administration has chosen to prioritize maintaining rock-bottom taxes for big corporations to the detriment of ordinary Americans and our allies across the globe," said one critic.
Jan 05, 2026
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development is facing criticism for buckling under US demands when finalizing an update to the global minimum corporate tax agreement.
As reported by Reuters on Monday, the OECD agreed to amend a 2021 deal to enforce a 15% global minimum corporate tax to include "simplifications and carve-outs to align US minimum tax laws with global standards, accommodating earlier objections raised by the Trump administration."
Under the original framework, OECD members agreed to apply a 15% corporate tax on multinational corporations that book profits in jurisdictions that have lower tax rates.
President Donald Trump objected to this, however, and insisted that some US corporations be given exemptions that have subsequently been granted by OECD states.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the revised deal "represents a historic victory in preserving US sovereignty and protecting American workers and businesses from extraterritorial overreach," while noting that it allowed for US-headquartered firms to be subject only to US global minimum taxes.
Some critics, though, accused the OECD of letting the US get away with robbery.
Zorka Milin, policy director at the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency Coalition, warned that the deal "risks nearly a decade of global progress on corporate taxation" by allowing "the largest, most profitable American companies to keep parking profits in tax havens."
“The Trump administration has chosen to prioritize maintaining rock-bottom taxes for big corporations to the detriment of ordinary Americans and our allies across the globe," Milin added.
Alex Cobham, chief executive at Tax Justice Network, said other OECD members were only hurting themselves by caving to Trump's demands.
"By the Tax Justice Network’s assessment, France for example is already losing $14 billion a year to tax cheating US firms, Germany is losing $16 billion, and the UK is losing $9 billion," Cobham explained. "Today’s bending of the knee to Trump will cost countries billions more. But how much more? Tellingly, the OECD, which has delivered this shameful result, and OECD members have not put a number on the scale of tax losses that will result."
An analysis published last month by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) made the case that global minimum corporate taxes were needed to prevent US companies from sheltering vast profits by reporting them in nations that serve as offshore tax havens.
As an example, ITEP pointed to data showing that the profits US companies reported in notorious tax havens such as Barbados and the British Virgin Islands were more than 100% of those territories' gross domestic product, which the report noted "is obviously impossible."
ITEP went on to state that full implementation of this global minimum tax is "the best hope for blocking the types of tax avoidance that have weakened corporate income taxes all over the world" by making it "difficult for any single government (even one as powerful as the US) to ignore or weaken it."
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