ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The US Agency for International Development (USAID) formally closed down on Tuesday, bringing an end to over six decades of the agency’s international development work across the globe.

The second administration of US President Donald Trump saw the development agency’s budget slashed and numerous operations suspended, with the president’s “America First” policies reducing the emphasis on foreign aid and seeking to curtail what it dubs “government waste.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a statement titled “Making Foreign Aid Great Again,” said that USAID had “little to show since the end of the Cold War,” lamenting the fact that major recipient countries often have high levels of “anti-American sentiment” and do not align with US foreign policy objectives.

“For example, in 2023, sub-Saharan African nations voted with the United States only 29 percent of the time on essential resolutions at the UN despite receiving $165 billion in outlays since 1991. That’s the lowest rate in the world,” Rubio wrote.

Washington will now favor “trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance,” he continued, saying that the “promotion of economic development abroad must be in furtherance of an America First foreign policy.”

The move has drawn severe criticism from former US presidents Barack Obama and George Bush, with the former saying, "Gutting USAID is a travesty and it is a tragedy because it's some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world" and that it will go down as “a colossal mistake.”

Bush, making reference to a landmark global health initiative combating HIV/AIDS that his administration implemented that has now been shuttered by the move, said, "This program shows a fundamental question facing our country - is it in our nation's interest that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is.”

A study published in The Lancet medical journal estimated that 14 million people could die by 2030 as a result of the Trump administration's aid cuts.

USAID was founded in 1961 by US President John F. Kennedy, with the organization distributing aid in over 160 countries and regions in 2023, according to the US government.

The aid agency operated extensively in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, assisting in reconstruction efforts following the 2003 US-led invasion and sponsoring myriad initiatives spanning governance, water sanitation, and women’s empowerment, among many others. In 2023, USAID partnered with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Tourism to unveil the Reform Roadmap initiative that seeks to bolster tourism in the Region.

Official US development aid will now be managed by the State Department.