On Feb. 5, 2025, the proposed dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) could disrupt clinical trials and wipe away U.S. “soft power” in developing countries, scientists warned.

The renowned International Research Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) said last week it had laid off 1000 people and paused 10 U.S.-funded studies and projects “in compliance with the Stop-Work Order, pending further directives” according to a spokesperson. (ICDDR,B received funding from USAID as well as the National Institutes of Health.) The halted projects focused on tuberculosis, nutrition, fungal infection surveillance, and the risk of viral spillover from animals to humans.

The website of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a USAID-funded program that has forecast food crises since 1985, has disappeared along with all of its data.

The Congressional Research Service in a brief issued February 3 noted that “because Congress established USAID as an independent establishment within the executive branch, the President does not have the authority to … abolish, move, or consolidate USAID.

The foreign aid freeze extends far beyond USAID, disrupting scientific efforts by other U.S. departments and nongovernmental organizations.