Shutting Down USAID Led to a Rise in Global Violence, Study Says

Eliminating USAID—which provided food, medical care, clean water, and more to over 60 countries around the world—could lead to 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to a 2025 study in the Lancet. Now, a new paper in Science is pointing to another knock-on effect: a rise in violent conflict across the regions and communities the organization once served.

“What happens is this sudden shock to projects, employment, livelihoods, and wages,” says Austin Wright, professor of public policy at the University of Chicago and one of the lead researchers on the paper. “That drives up conflict by effectively creating economic chaos on the ground.”

To explore what happens when crucial aid suddenly disappears, Wright and his colleagues surveyed 870 regions or communities that used to receive USAID services from March 2024—before Trump scrapped the program—until Nov. 2025, around nine months after his move. The researchers used two datasets; one tracks global assistance programs, and the other tracks incidents of violence across the same areas. The researchers also tallied the amount of aid received by each of the regions studied.

The results were striking. On the whole, there was a 6.5% increase in the probability of conflict after aid was halted across the 870 regions, compared to other parts of the world with similar characteristics but that receive no aid. Protests and riots increased by 10%, incidents of armed fighting rose by 6.9%, and battle-related fatalities grew 9.3%. The uptick in violence began almost immediately after the aid stopped and remained elevated for months. There was, says Wright, “a persistent change in the risk ecosystem.” 

The authors of the paper looked not just at the number of incidents, but also the severity—how many battles were waged in ongoing fighting, for example. “That is actually increasing by more than 10%,” Wright says. “So you’re both more likely to be falling into war or conflict, and that conflict is going to be more severe.” Across all 870 regions, those that had received greater amounts of aid experienced proportionally more violence than those receiving less or none.

Stopping USAID comes at a cost to the U.S., too, Wright says.  While the U.S. alienates former global partners by stopping the program, China is attracting new friends and allies with its Belt and Road Initiative, building infrastructure in beneficiary nations, he points out. “There is a reputational issue,” says Wright. “We’re not the only superpower trying to win favor. Once you shut down an organization like USAID, this creates a persistent concern about uncertainty in contracts. Shutting down USAID is thought of as an action taken in bad faith that would prevent the U.S. from fully re-engaging with all of the NGOs that were their partners.”

A rise in instability abroad also creates a national-security risk for the U.S., Wright adds. Yemen—once a major USAID recipient, with $768 million worth of aid flowing into the country in 2024—is also home to the Houthis, an Iran-backed militant group that controls much of the country’s north and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. As USAID funding disappears, support for the rebels is only likely to grow, he says. “Iran can continue to finance rebellions like the Houthis,” says Wright. “These second- and third-order effects might be even more consequential to the U.S. than the direct effects.”