The Trump administration puts an end to almost all foreign assistance subsidies in the countries of Central Asia, according to a document which was sent to the American Congress this week, describing the Programs of the American Agency for International Development (USAID).
If the document corresponds to reality, it not only marks a devastating blow for us soft power in the region, but will have a local impact.
Unlike common belief, foreign aid is a tiny part of the entire American budget, And In Central Asia, the aid was fairly targeted by the sector, not biased towards the promotion of democracy. For example, in 2023 – the most recent year for which complete data is available on Foreign.gov – American aid forced the five Central Asian states included $ 52.8 million for health programs, $ 40.9 million for economic development, $ 37.9 million for program support, $ 37.8 million for peace and security, $ 32.1 million for democracy, human rights and governance programs, and $ 25 million social.
March 10US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X:
After a 6 -week exam, we officially come 83% of USAID programs.
The 5,200 contracts which are now canceled have spent tens of billions of dollars in a way that was not used (and in some cases even injured), the main national interests of the United States.
Punchbowl News had, days earlierreported that a denunciator has given members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a list of thousands of canceled programs from the USAID. Subsequently, a second list was disclosed, apparently containing a list of active projects from the USAID.
On March 24, according to Politico, a document was sent to the congress describing the active and licensed programs of the USAID. Justin Sandefur and Charles Kenny at the Center for Global Development has made an analysis of the documents disclosed and published estimates on cuts concerning the sector and scale compared to country programs.
“The country’s analysis suggests that a certain number of country programs may have been effectively closed, in particular in Central Asia and the East, but also in West Africa, Central Europe and the Americas,” they wrote.
The document contains three tables: a summary table, a table of “active” programs and a much longer table of “finished rewards”. According to the summary table, there are 898 active programs and 5,241 rewards have finished. The tables list the total estimated cost, the obligatory amount and the remaining non -obligated value.
The other two tables list a variety of information, including suppliers and contract descriptions, award identifiers, issuing offices, the total estimated cost, the “obliged” amount (probably a typo for “obliged”) as well as the starting and end of the contract. Reward IDs are useful for looking for more information on specific projects. (Note: When the costs are indicated below, I use the total estimated cost, and not the “obliged” amount – in the same cases, there is a huge difference, in others, none).
Some important warnings, that Sandefur and Kenny noted: First, programs are listed with dollars’ amounts, but aid programs often extend over several years. The analysis of Sandefur and Kenny used the amounts forced to die of Mûr FY24-25, according to Foreign.gov – But not all the canceled rewards do not correspond to the database “so this figure will be an underestimation of the real scale of the cuts”.
Second, Sandefur and Kenny hypothesize that the March 24 list is over, which means that the active programs and the awards finished represent the total. “Also note that this is missing any support provided through regional and global subsidies,” they said. This last point is important because a certain degree of foreign assistance in the United States in the Central Asian region is provided regionally, and not bilaterally.
The warnings, the data is always devastating.
According to Analysis of Sandefur and Kenny,, 100% of country programs in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan end, while 78% of the Kyrgyzstan program and 69% of Tajikistan programs are canceled.
Regional programs which are listed as “assets” in the document include three subsidies for food aid via the USAID office for humanitarian assistance (BHA): one for 131.32 metric tonnes of the “Harvest Lentil Pro (HLP)” for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan between September 2023 and September 2025 and a second for the same amount Uzbekkistan in the same period. Each grant has a listed cost of more than $ 221,000. There is a third subsidy for HLP in the active list of Uzbekistan for September 2024 to September 2026. A 2020 sheetReferring to food aid to Uzbekistan, noted that “Harvest Lentil Pro (HLP)” is manufactured by an American company, Breedlove Dehydrated Foods.
There is a subsidy from the United Nations World Food Program for $ 17 million to support social security nets in Tajikistan with additional Ukrainian funds.
Also in the active list is a program of nearly $ 22 million entitled “Heal the activity of tuberculosis 2“Emitted by” USAID / Asia Central / Kazakhstan “and a cooperation agreement of $ 20 million without a issuing office listed to” reduce the burden “of tuberculosis in Tajikistan.
And that’s it for central Asian programs listed as active.
Among the canceled awards are a contract of nearly $ 45 million with Tetra Tech ES: “Tacked order to implement USAID Central Asia Activity Phase I. “The project, which seems to have been launched in 2019 or 2020 and which was to take place until 2026, aimed at” helping national governments, public services and other stakeholders to develop national energy market reforms, help strengthen the regional electricity market and promote the adoption of specific energy technologies from conventional and renewable sources. ” According to the United States government, $ 35 million on the subsidy of $ 44.8 million have already spent.
Another price that approached its final date and has been terminated is a $ 34 million project entitled in the document “USAID Trade Central Asia”. The identification of the project price corresponds to that of a Contract 2022 intended to “increase the ceiling of the referencing contract by $ 15 million to add additional funding which will reduce the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the economies and residents of Central Asia”.
Other prices completed include projects related to Regional water management,, Rural water supply to TajikistanA livestock sector must be assessed in Turkmenistan, climate resilience in Kyrgyzstan, Development of agro-industry in Uzbekistan,, Fight tuberculosis in Uzbekistan (Although a targeting program Tuberculosis in Tajikistan apparently survived), LGBT rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan,, Anti-corruption in KyrgyzistanMedia and Development of civil society in Kyrgyzistan and Uzbekistan,, And many other large and small projects.
Some of the licensed projects were being completed, casting a doubt about the amount that the money was “saved” by canceling them. Anyway, it is far from the savings announced. As for whether the canceled projects have failed to advance basic American interests, this judgment is based not only on the way in which we conceptualize American interests, but also on the way in which we are approaching international affairs more broadly.