Evangelicals were essential in reelecting Donald Trump. Now, his sudden and drastic cuts to aid programs are forcing some evangelical nonprofits to end work and fire personnel, while Focus on the Family and other conservative groups praise the aid cuts and deny any harm is being done.
Leaders from World Vision, Compassion International, World Relief, Samaritan’s Purse, Christian Aid, Food for the Hungry and the National Association of Evangelicals went to Washington early this month to meet with administration officials and plead for change amid unprecedented and chaotic cuts to federal aid programs.
A World Vision executive said the Trump cuts to USAID could force it to cancel vital programs and let go some 3,000 staff in 40 countries, according to reports by Devex and the Washington Post.
A Trump official said the visit would lead the administration to “rescind” cuts in funding to World Vision and other groups. Samaritan’s Purse, which is led by outspoken Trump supporter Franklin Graham, also has seen its funding continued. What change, if any, has happened since is not clear.
The Trump cuts “are destabilizing every corner of the nonprofit sector.”
The Supreme Court ruled March 5 that the administration must unfreeze $2 billion in funding for charity work already completed. But the justices gave Trump no deadline, and some groups say their funding remains frozen.
The Trump cuts “are destabilizing every corner of the nonprofit sector,” said Stacy Palmer, CEO of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Palmer said nonprofit leaders are terrified as they struggle to meet payroll following “haphazard,” “random” and “nasty” shutdowns of previously promised funding.
“There’s been a lot of nonprofit-bashing by both Musk and Trump, and that’s incredibly damaging,” Palmer said.
Some praise the Trump cuts
At the D.C. meeting, dozens of nonprofit leaders heard a Trump official call USAID a “money-laundering scheme” and question the constitutionality of the kinds of foreign aid USAID has practiced since its founding in 1961.
While dozens of faith-based aid groups vehemently disagree with that assessment, some of Trump’s staunchest allies still praise his aid cuts. They condemn all USAID programs while failing to praise any good done by the agency.
“It doesn’t take a wizard to figure out that USAID squandered Americans’ money on stupid and immoral causes,” Focus on the Family claimed in an article, “Closing USAID Isn’t Crazy — Here’s Why.”
“American families … shouldn’t have to wonder whether their government is bilking them or pouring cash into corrupt and ineffective organizations in service of causes they don’t believe in,” the Focus article said. The ministry cited no positive work done by USAID.
Claiming no harm
Now Elon Musk claims no one has died because of the USAID cuts. “No one has died as result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding,” he wrote. “No one.”
Nonprofit leaders on the ground say he’s wrong — children and adults already are dying due to the aid cut-off.
And that’s only the beginning, according to one USAID executive in a memo: The USAID suspension would lead to 71,000 to 166,000 malaria deaths annually. Polio — on the cusp of being globally eradicated — would surge back, paralyzing around 200,000 people per year and rebounding to hundreds of millions of cases over the next 10 years. Deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola or Marburg could spread to around 28,000 cases.
Officials with direct knowledge say 1 million children will not be treated for severe acute malnutrition and 2 million to 3 million children will die from completely preventable diseases because they will not receive vaccines.
And those deadly diseases that aren’t treated in other countries won’t remain in other countries. More communicable diseases will reach U.S. shores, causing U.S. health costs to rise.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff arrived at his own harrowing numbers.
“As the world’s richest men slash American aid for the world’s poorest children, they insist that all is well,” but:
- “An estimated 1,650,000 people could die within a year without American foreign aid for HIV prevention and treatment.
- “An estimated 500,000 people could die within a year without American funding for vaccines.
- “An estimated 550,000 people could die within a year without American funding for food aid.
- “An estimated 290,000 people could die within a year without American funding for malaria prevention.
- “An estimated 310,000 people could die within a year without U.S. funding for tuberculosis prevention.”
The Family Research Council claims it is “disinformation” to say anyone has died as a result of the cuts.
Focus denies harm
Conservative Christian groups that are pro-life when it comes to abortion have embraced the claim that Trump’s aid cuts won’t lead to any deaths, even though field workers are already reporting fatalities.
Focus on the Family questions the need for foreign aid, much as it previously questioned the need for domestic aid to the poor.
“Dependency on Foreign Aid Hurts the Very People it Aims to Help,” claimed Focus in one article that cited an expert sympathetic to Trump’s cuts: “When it comes to USAID, Trump is right: ‘The system is rigged.’ Only deep and significant cuts can force strategic alignment and create the right incentives for the necessary reforms.”
The Family Research Council, which Focus founded four decades ago, claims it is “disinformation” to say anyone has died as a result of the cuts. FRC claims life-saving aid continues: “DOGE is not cutting off life-saving aid — food assistance, for instance — in deeply poverty-stricken nations where there is a life-or-death situation. What we’re stopping is waste, fraud, and abuse. And in these programs, that is very widespread.”
FRC President Tony Perkins said USAID had gone leftist: “It was almost like USAID and federal funds were used as a donor match program, so the leftists could ‘double their impact’ by teaming up with the U.S. government, aided by U.S. tax dollars.”
Perkins said USAID’s leftward shift was not “mission creep” but was “intentional. This came from the White House to all agencies to basically put the pedal to the metal and advance this radical, ideological agenda.”
Perkins also accused the U.S. government before Trump of “imposing some kind of immoral agenda.”
The other side
His view is not shared by other evangelical leaders who actually care for the world’s poor.
David Beckmann of Bread for the World told Foreign Policy: “We’ve got to rally, put pressure on members of Congress, to have mercy. … How can you go to church and sit in the front row and support what Trump and his administration are doing to people in poverty and the vulnerable?”
Even the National Association of Evangelicals has called for Christians to embrace “Compassion for a World in Need” and a “Renewed Commitment to Stewardship (and) Global Compassion.”
NAE has called on Congress and the administration to:
- Maintain support for poverty-focused international assistance and refugee resettlement, continuing to work with faith-based implementing partners wherever appropriate.
- Articulate for the American people the compelling rationale for continued global engagement and U.S. leadership in international humanitarian and development cooperation and refugee resettlement.
Catholic ministries feel pain
The Trump cuts have fallen particularly hard on Catholic nonprofits working with refugees, immigrants and the poor. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, defended the cuts by falsely telling CBS News the church profits financially from its refugee work: “I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?”
The Jesuit publication America responded: “The attacks on the resources and structures that serve the poor and on the religious institutions that serve the most vulnerable are unprecedented in their scale, pace and human impact.”
The publication criticized “reckless actions and sweeping proposals that threaten the lives and dignity of so many people.”
In defending the cuts, Vance also twisted Catholic theology, earning a rebuke from Pope Francis. The USCCB has sued the Trump administration over the cuts.
