The U.S. is the fifth largest bilateral development donor in the region, far behind arch-rival China
By Harry Pearl
(BenarNews)--Aid agencies operating in the Pacific are still scrambling to assess the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order freezing billions of dollars in foreign aid last week.
The directive halted the disbursement of funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development for at least 90 days to review each program’s alignment with Trump's “America First” foreign policy.
In the Pacific Islands — one of the most aid-dependent regions in the world — aid programs in sectors ranging from governance to women’s economic empowerment are likely to be affected.
Several USAID partners in the region contacted by BenarNews said they were trying to gather more information and evaluate potential impacts before commenting.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver for “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” but it was unclear whether it included the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
The program provides antiretroviral therapy, case management and care for millions of people with HIV and AIDS across the world, including a growing number in Papua New Guinea.
Ann Clarke, the project manager at Businesses for Health in PNG, which supports the delivery of several USAID-funded projects for HIV and health, said the aid freeze was heartbreaking.
“We’re devastated by the news of a funding pause on USAID programs in PNG,” said Clarke, a veteran health and HIV advisor in the Pacific’s most populous nation.
“The Global Fund for tuberculosis, HIV and Malaria is also a beneficiary of USAID,” she told BenarNews. “The three grants for TB/HIV and Malaria in PNG are massive.
“The PNG government is not capable of securing long-term futures for people with TB, HIV or managing the complex malaria situation.”
A spokeswoman for FHI 360, a nonprofit that coordinates USAID-funded HIV programs in PNG, said it could not comment because “the situation is still evolving.”
The organization has five local partners, most of which gave almost identical responses when contacted by BenarNews about the funding freeze.
When asked what initiatives in the Pacific were under review, a USAID spokesperson said all programs and grants without a waiver approved by the Secretary of State using foreign assistance funding had been paused.
Trump’s order threatens other programs such as the Pacific American Fund, a five-year, US$35 million aid project launched in 2020, and a US$50 million Pacific Islands Microfinance Partnership announced in 2023.
The Women in Business Development organization in Samoa, which received a USAID grant of almost US$ 1 million in 2023 to help protect coconut tree farms from rhinoceros beetles, said it was in the “process of assessing the impacts of the U.S. funding suspension” and could not comment further.
The directive also casts a shadow over the future of a governance program led by the East-West Center, the clearance of WWII munitions, and media projects run by Internews and the investigative reporting platform the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
In recent years, the U.S. government has tried to elevate its aid presence in the Pacific to counter the growing influence of China. The Asian power has become an important development partner for many economically lagging Pacific Island states.
Washington opened an expanded USAID mission in Fiji’s capital Suva in August 2023. It also announced more than US$10 million in additional aid at the 53rd gathering of the Pacific Islands Forum last year.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2025 Budget Request includes US$10 million for USAID-administered Global Health Programs in the Pacific Islands and US$89 million in development assistance.
Still, the U.S. trails Australia, China, Japan and New Zealand in terms of aid spending in the region, according to the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map.
Total American aid spending reached US$3.4 billion in the Pacific between 2008 and 2022, according to the Lowy Institute, with most money directed toward the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau.
The three Pacific island countries give the U.S. exclusive military authority in their territories in exchange for economic assistance under compacts of free association.
Alexandre Dayant, deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Development Center and project lead for the Pacific Aid Map, said that U.S. aid spending outside the compact states was “tiny” compared to other donors.
“Obviously there’s a lot of surprise with respect to the announcement, but the impact of it will probably not be as strong as you’d expect,” he told BenarNews.
“This doesn't take away the fact that the Trump administration is doing things beyond the aid and development that will hamper its diplomatic footprint in the region. One of them is the administration’s stance towards climate change.”
Trump’s executive order to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change sparked dismay and criticism in the Pacific, where the impacts of a warming planet are already being felt in the form of more intense storms, droughts and rising sea levels.
Vanuatu’s Attorney General Arnold Loughman led a chorus of criticism, saying the U.S. exit represented an “undeniable setback” for international action on climate change.
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