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A Young Child Could Die Every 40 Seconds by 2030 Due to 'Cruel and Illegal' Trump Aid Cuts
"We are seeing years of progress unravel, and more children suffer and die preventable deaths because of these cuts."
Jan 15, 2026
President Donald Trump's shuttering of USAID last year will have a long-term negative impact on children throughout the world, according to a report released on Thursday by Oxfam.
In its analysis, Oxfam estimates that a child under the age of five could die every 40 seconds by 2030 thanks to the Trump administration's dismantling of American foreign aid programs.
Oxfam says it's basing its projections on "calculations in [the] Lancet’s impact evaluation and forecasting analysis from last July, which projected "4,537,157 child deaths by 2030."
The report also pointed to estimates from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and Gates Foundation, which calculates "an additional 200,000 child deaths" for children under five last year. This lines up with data published by the Boston University School of Public Health last year estimating over 250,000 child deaths caused by the drastic slashing of foreign aid funding under the Trump administration.
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said that "we have run out of words to describe the depths of suffering" caused by Trump's destruction of "the entire global aid system."
"We are seeing years of progress unravel, and more children suffer and die preventable deaths because of these cuts," Maxman added.
The report also highlighted the specific impacts cuts have had in Sudan, the Philippines, and Syria.
Mayfourth Luneta, deputy executive director of the Center for Disaster Preparedness Foundation, an Oxfam partner in the Philippines, said that due to the Trump aid cuts, her organization had to cancel programs across eight communities that were impacted by floods and earthquakes last year.
"The Philippines was hit with the most powerful storms on Earth recorded last year," Luneta said. "Communities were devastated, families were left with nothing."
Shabnam Baloch, country director for Oxfam in South Sudan, described the impact that aid cuts have had on a country that is undergoing a horrific civil war.
"Water borne illnesses are spreading rapidly, starvation is imminent for many, and while needs are rising, lifesaving organizations are working with a fraction of the resources we had in previous years," said Baloch. "Oxfam, along with many other vital organizations, will be forced to scale down our programs without immediate intervention."
Sara Savva, deputy director-general the alliance of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East and the Department of Ecumenical Relations and Development (GOPA-DERD), an Oxfam partner in Syria, said her organization had "to drastically reduce the scale and scope of our programs for Syrian families and Iraqi refugees residing in Syria" in the wake of the Trump administration's cuts.
"We were notified we will no longer receive funding from the US government, and thousands of people are left without crucial services necessary to rebuild their lives after a catastrophic civil war," Savva said.
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UN Describes 'Crime Scene' in el-Fasher, Sudan After Gaining Access to War-Torn City
UN officials said they were "still very concerned about those who are injured, who we didn’t see, those who may be detained."
Dec 30, 2025
After weeks of pushing for access to el-Fasher, the city in Sudan's Darfur region that was taken over by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in October, United Nations officials reported on Tuesday that their recent visit to the city showed evidence of a "crime scene," with the few people remaining there showing signs of trauma from the mass atrocities they suffered and witnessed.
UN humanitarian workers gained access to the city last Friday, two months after the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) lost control of el-Fasher to the United Arab Emirates-backed RSF.
The city was the SAF's last major stronghold in Darfur, and fighting has now escalated in the Kordofan region.
Reuters reported that the RSF has attempted to portray el-Fasher as "back to normal" since its takeover, even as the Yale Humanitan Research Lab published a report earlier this month on the mass killings that the paramilitary group have sought hide evidence of "through burial, burning, and removal of human remains on a mass scale."
Denise Brown, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, told Reuters that the few people remaining in el-Fasher are living in empty buildings or tents made of plastic sheets. A small market was operating, but was selling only locally grown vegetables.
"The town was not teeming with people," Brown said. "There were very few people that [we] were able to see... We have photos of people, and you can see clearly on their faces the accumulation of fatigue, of stress, of anxiety, of loss."
Healthcare staff were seen at Saudi Hospital in el-Fasher, where 460 people were killed in an RSF attack, but they were working without medical supplies, Brown said.
Yale's report earlier this month relied partially in satellite imagery taken between October 26-November 28, which showed clusters of what researchers said were consistent with human remains in and around el-Fasher. More than 70% of the clusters had become smaller in satellite images by late November, and 38% were no longer visible.
The researchers said the RSF has used particular patterns of killing, including murdering people as they flee attacks, door-to-door and execution-style killings, and mass killings at detention centers and military installations.
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Humanitarian Research Lab, said the UN's discovery of few signs of life in el-Fasher corroborated the lab's findings.
Brown said the UN team is "still very concerned about those who are injured, who we didn’t see, those who may be detained," and told Reuters the officials plan to return to assess water and sanitation access.
About 100,000 people fled el-Fasher in October, and about three-quarters of those forced to leave the city were already internally displaced people who had fled violence as many as three or more times. In total 1.17 million el-Fasher residents have been displaced.
Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), released a short documentary detailing the experiences of people who left the city and are sheltering in Chad.
"They call it Paris, and now it is destroyed," a man named Noor told MSF of el-Fasher. "In the past it was a good city with all its lights on."
An estimated 30.4 Sudanese people are now in need of humanitarian assistance, and on Monday the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported unprecedented levels of child malnutrition in the Um Baru locality in northern Darfur.
More than half of children there are suffering from acute malnutrition, and 1 in 6 are severely, acutely malnourished—a condition that could kill them within weeks if left untreated.
“When severe acute malnutrition reaches this level, time becomes the most critical factor,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “Children in Um Baru are fighting for their lives and need immediate help. Every day without safe and unhindered access increases the risk of children growing weaker and more death and suffering from causes that are entirely preventable.”
Many of the families observed by UNICEF fled el-Fasher in recent weeks.
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Congress Must Review an Autonomous Weapons Deal Between UAE and US Companies
There is a serious concern that these autonomous weapons could end up in the arms of the UAE-backed militia and regimes in the Middle East, which would fuel ongoing wars and cause great harm.
Dec 23, 2025
In December 2025, a joint venture was announced between EDGE, the leading Emirati advanced technology and defense conglomerate comprising 25 companies involved in military and civilian products and technologies, and Anduril Industries, an American defense company specializing in the development of advanced autonomous systems. The first product envisioned under this joint venture is Omen, a newly developed hover-to-cruise Autonomous Air Vehicle, or AAV. According to the terms of the agreement, the UAE will acquire the first 50 units of Omen.
There is, however, a serious concern that these autonomous weapons could end up in the arms of the UAE-backed militia and regimes in the Middle East, which would fuel ongoing wars and cause great harm.
For years, the United Arab Emirates has presented itself as a stabilizing force in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Yet its actions on the ground tell a far more troubling story. From Libya to Ethiopia, the UAE has repeatedly backed armed groups and proxy forces, deepening conflicts rather than resolving them. In Somalia and Yemen, it has been bolstering the separatists' voice. During the ongoing War in Sudan, the UAE has been backing the RSF militia with financial and military support to the RSF militia, including a recent supply of foreign combatants. The impact of UAE funding to the RSF militia has been catastrophic; it enabled the militia to commit numerous massacres and genocides in the Darfur region. According to United Nations experts, it is estimated that the militia killed 15,000 members of the Massalit tribe based on their ethnicity. In other parts of Darfur, women were raped and abducted, and children were piled up and shot to death. For months, El-Fashir city, the main refugee area in Darfur, has been besieged by the militia.
Here, we are not speculating but building our analysis on previous solid violations cases. EDGE has consistently supported the UAE's allied militias in different parts of the Middle East. In November 2024, an investigative report by Amnesty International exposed that armored personnel carriers (APCs) were found in Sudan. These arms are manufactured by EDGE and are used by the RSF militia in stark violations of the UN arms embargo in Darfur. UN experts said that vehicles built by EDGE were also found in Libya and Somalia. These revelations show how EDGE could go far to collude with the UAE regime in its devastating wars and reckless interventions.
Ideally, an oversight mechanism should be established to ensure that these autonomous weapons and drones will not reach outlaw military militias and rogue regimes.
Recently, the UAE started to use Wagner and other Russian militia in its operations in Africa, for instance, in September 2024, it used Wagner to funnel arms to its RSF ally. The UAE also supported the Central Republic of Africa to pay the cost of hiring the Russian Atlas Corps to defend the government. And in November 2020, a report by the Pentagon mentioned that he UAE funded Wagner in Libya. Given these growing ties, it is legitimate to consider a scenario where these advanced autonomous systems could be leaked to Russian mercenary groups at any point in the future, which indeed represents a serious threat to US security and its interests in Africa.
Related to this are the recent reports that show that the UAE has increased its arms to the region in 2025. This escalation reflects its plans and goals, and that these autonomous weapons will be on its list for the next shipments, providing its militia and allied regimes with a competitive advantage over its foes, i.e stable governments and nations
When thinking about this deal, we have to take into consideration that the UAE isn’t a democratic country. It's ruled by a single family, with no parliament to review decisions made concerning wars. Hence, it can’t be trusted by any measure to act responsibly if it owns this advanced technology.
Congress must take this issue seriously and review this deal. Ideally, an oversight mechanism should be established to ensure that these autonomous weapons and drones will not reach outlaw military militias and rogue regimes and be part of subverting countries and jeopardizing the US long-term interests.
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