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Since the Trump administration took office a year ago, we’ve been trying to understand what’s happened to US spending on international assistance—particularly resources focused on traditional development priorities and humanitarian needs. This is no small task. We quickly ran into a familiar problem: the data are either timely or readily usable, but rarely both.
Foreignassistance.gov remains an excellent resource for tracking most US aid flows, but inevitably, there are reporting lags. To date, agencies have only reported through quarter 3 of FY25—and Q4 is especially important for capturing year-end spending. So we’ve turned to other sources (such as OMB budget execution reporting and USAspending.gov) that are more up-to-date, but more challenging to work with. But we’re also mindful that relying on the US government’s fiscal year can be misleading, since the Biden administration was still at the helm for the entire first quarter of fiscal year 2025. So, we’ve been eagerly awaiting data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the end of calendar year 2025. While relying on calendar-year data is also an imperfect approach (since the formal transfer of power took place on January 20, 2025), comparing data for key aid accounts in 2025 with prior calendar years provides a more complete picture of the near-term funding implications of the recent upheaval.
With new data, we examined both obligations (commitments) and outlays (disbursements) for several of the core US international assistance accounts over the last calendar year. Here’s what we found.
A quick note on obligations and outlays
Obligations— commitments to spend in a given fiscal year—generally result in outlays, or the actual spending down of allocated funds. The timing of these outlays depends on the procurement mechanism and award specifics. Historically, it’s been common to rely on obligations as a proxy in discussions of US foreign aid spending. But early in calendar year 2025, the incoming Trump administration cancelled a slew of awards, effectively de-obligating substantial sums, including commitments made in prior fiscal years, raising questions about the extent to which obligations remain a reliable measure. As we attempt to understand the consequences of last year’s political transition on US foreign assistance spending, tracking both obligations and outlays is important. Still, a substantial share of outlays in calendar year 2025 likely stems from obligations made in the prior calendar year—whether related to awards the administration retained or for closeout payments and disbursements for services previously rendered. Obligations for the calendar year act as a leading indicator, giving us a sense of what’s in the pipeline and an early signal of potential outlays in 2026.
The United States is the largest bilateral donor to global health. US leadership in tackling the scourge of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases has been a point of pride. The Trump administration has signaled interest in ushering in a new era of US global health assistance—one that works more closely with partner governments, spends less overall, and establishes a timeline for winding down support. (We see promise in elements of that approach—though plenty of questions remain unanswered.) Still, the administration’s substantial pivot is in its early stages—and as government procurement takes time, it’s unlikely to have played a big role in shaping US global health spending yet.
The topline figures for the calendar year show that global health outlays in 2025 were down more than a third from 2024 (though 2024 was a big year, 2025 also trailed 2022 and 2023). As our colleagues have pointed out, there’s substantial evidence that US global health spending saves lives. As a result, lower US global health spending is expected to contribute to more deaths.
Global health commitments fared worse, dropping by more than 36 percent compared to the prior calendar year—and also lagging behind 2022 and 2023. Given planned changes to the operating model, that’s not wholly surprising. Still, it underscores the work ahead for the State Department—and, specifically, the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy. Appropriators have indicated they hope to see substantial global health investment in fiscal year 2026, with a budget of $9.4 billion compared to calendar year 2025 obligations of $8.1 billion. The administration’s new approach may well require new or different procurement mechanisms at a time when the Department is already short on capacity.
USAID managed a bilateral economic account known as Development Assistance (DA) that supported a wide range of programming, from advancing food security and increasing energy access to supporting basic education and water and sanitation. The Trump administration rescinded $2.5 billion in DA funds.
Through the end of the calendar year, DA outlays were nearly 40 percent lower than in 2024. And emphasizing plans to eliminate the account, obligations are less than a quarter of what they were in calendar year 2024. Though, as we’ve noted elsewhere, that doesn’t necessarily mean the United States will no longer deliver assistance aimed at achieving some of the same development objectives once supported by DA.
The other primary bilateral non-global health account, the Economic Support Fund (ESF), which seeks to advance economic growth and political stability, had been jointly managed by the State Department and USAID. Again, the administration sought a rescission from the account—to the tune of $1.65 billion—and reportedly transferred $1.8 billion in remaining resources from USAID to the State Department. The bulk of economic aid to Ukraine had been channeled via ESF to a World Bank trust fund, and ESF had likewise been a source of substantial COVID response funding. These contributed to higher-than-usual outlays over the last several years, particularly in 2022 and 2023. ESF outlays last calendar year were 25 percent lower than in 2024.
In keeping with the trend, obligations look to be further behind.
Though based on the FY26 spending bill, both DA and ESF will be supplanted by a new National Security Investment Programs account, featuring a topline reduction (just shy of $6.77 billion, compared to about $7.82 billion in FY25) and greater flexibility.
Another signature of the United States development leadership over the decades has been its contributions to international food assistance. A large share of this assistance has been delivered in the form of in-kind food aid, which, while inefficient, supports American producers of agricultural commodities and the domestic shipping industry. The largest international food aid program, known as Food for Peace, or PL 480 Title II grants, has been something of an outlier in the international affairs account—with funding carried in the annual Agriculture spending bill. But the program was historically administered by USAID, with USDA playing a role in procurement. With the shuttering of USAID, USDA is assuming management, raising questions about the Department’s capacity to pick up where USAID left off, given the tremendous operational complexity of in-kind food delivery, particularly in crisis contexts. But it’s notable that disbursements under the program in FY2025 were only just below those in calendar year 2024.
The administration has often leveled criticism at multilateral institutions, though more recently, the State Department has found common cause with some. And while a review of US participation in international organizations led the administration to walk away from 66, it opted to remain (at least passively engaged) in many more.
The State Department’s Contributions to International Organizations account is the primary source of assessed contributions to international organizations. Since the funding flows based on these assessments, outlays, and obligations tend to track more closely. But this is another instance in which the current administration departed from tradition, pursued rescissions (of around $722 million) to the account, and requested a much lower sum in its FY26 budget request.
Appropriators are ready to put far more in the coffers—the recent spending bill would fund the account with a 13 percent cut compared to the 82 percent reduction sought by the administration. But whether the money is used to pay down the administration’s outstanding commitments remains to be seen.
The Trump administration has touted its continued commitment to US humanitarian support, dispatching assistance to Jamaica and the Philippines in response to natural disasters. Amid the COVID pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, humanitarian toplines were buoyed by large supplemental spending bills in recent years. Congress appropriates “no year” money to these accounts—meaning the funding doesn’t expire. Still, the administration sought rescissions from major humanitarian accounts last year. USAID’s International Disaster Assistance (IDA) account saw $496 million clawed back over the summer. In another unusual move, following passage of the FY25 Continuing Resolution, the administration indicated it would not spend certain enacted funding that Congress designated as emergency, effectively bringing the topline figure down 15 percent.
While actual IDA spending in 2025 lagged behind 2024 by just over 15 percent, commitments for future spending under the account were down by over half.
The age of large supplemental spending packages would seem to be over—but while we don’t anticipate major plus-ups to humanitarian accounts, Congress would still provide more than double the administration’s request for a central humanitarian spending account, merging IDA with Migration and Refugee Assistance.
We’ve previously highlighted a big reduction in US humanitarian spending over the last fiscal year—as has our colleague. With respect to the State Department’s Migration and Refugee Assistance account, which helps meet the urgent needs of refugee populations abroad, the trend appeared to hold through the end of the calendar year. Outlays tracked behind the prior year by more than 30 percent.
And once again, obligations trailed even further behind recent calendar years, coming in more than 50 percent below the calendar year 2024 level. This isn’t entirely surprising given the administration worked to rescind $800 million from the account and pledged not to spend an additional $750 million in funding designated as emergency in the FY25 continuing resolution. But we’ll be eager to see where and if US humanitarian assistance ticks up, particularly given a newly minted agreement with the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Across nearly every account, foreign assistance spending dropped sharply from 2024 levels, aligning neatly with the Trump administration’s stated goal of pulling back—and with the reality of a smaller funding pool whittled down by rescissions and other budget machinations. Global health and humanitarian accounts held up better than most in terms of actual outlays, but even those lifesaving budget lines weren’t spared when it came to forward-looking obligations. The result: a potential mismatch between the ambition appropriators envision for foreign assistance dollars and the capacity (and intent) needed to spend them.
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Thumbnail image by: Morgana Wingard/USAID
