“A Planet Shaker”: Educational Impacts of USAID’s Dismantling

In early 2025, President Trump froze and then gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), slashing more than $50 billion of aid spending. The speed and scale of Trump’s cuts sent shockwaves around the world and destabilized a global order in which the United States wielded tremendous financial and symbolic power through its foreign aid. Although significant media attention has been paid to cuts’ devastating ramifications for global public health, little is known about the consequences of the funding cuts to international development education. In this article, we drew on 62 interviews with actors situated within both global and national organizations to consider how USAID closures have transformed education globally. Our findings indicate that development actors see in this moment both widespread damage to education sectors and the possibility for newly configured aid and educational relations.