When the secretary of the treasury, Scott Bessent, traveled to Kyiv this month, he wanted President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign an agreement ceding mineral rights to the United States, delivering a quick win for the Trump administration. But Mr. Zelensky had an ask of his own: a meeting with President Trump, to finalize a deal…
As the reality sets in that the United States is drastically diminishing its foreign assistance to developing countries, an urgent conversation is starting among governments, philanthropists, and global health and development organizations. It is centered on one crucial question: Who will fill this gap? Last year, the United States contributed about $12 billion to global…
Ukraine on Saturday was seriously considering a revised American proposal for its vast natural resources that contains virtually the same provisions that Kyiv previously rejected as too onerous, according to a draft document of the new proposal. Some of the terms appear even tougher than in a previous draft. Though Ukraine had not finalized the…
Funds for vital health programs around the world remain frozen and their work has not been able to resume, despite a federal judge’s order that temporarily halted the Trump administration’s dismantling of the government’s main foreign aid agency. Interviews with people working on health initiatives in Africa and Asia found that parents in Kenya whose…
Feb 19, 2025 04:38 PM IST Bill Gates pointed out that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has kept “over 20 million people alive with HIV drugs.” Bill Gates has expressed grave concerns over Donald Trump‘s decision to ax USAID. In a PBS interview on Monday, the Microsoft founder said that the president’s…
Nepal, the small Himalayan nation bordering China, was negotiating with Beijing over a major injection of infrastructure financing when the United States stepped in with a lucrative offer. Over five years, the American government would give the country $500 million in grants to expand its electricity grid and improve its roads — a huge sum…
Numerous programs aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by global warming are ensnared in the effort to dismantle the main American aid agency, U.S.A.I.D. One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in…
Pete Marocco has spent much of this month hunkered in an office suite on the seventh floor of the State Department overseeing the dismantling of the architecture for how the United States delivers foreign aid. But he did have time to greet a foreign guest who had been making the rounds in Washington during the…
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, millions of people in poor nations died literally gasping for breath, even in hospitals. What they lacked was medical oxygen, which is in short supply in much of the world. On Monday, a panel of experts published a comprehensive report on the shortage. Each year, the report noted,…
Nearly 40 years after she was born with a malformed spine and misshapen limbs — most likely because her father was exposed to Agent Orange, the toxic chemical that the American military used during the Vietnam War — Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diem finally got some help from the United States. A project funded by U.S.A.I.D….