Washington, Feb 6 (AP) The Trump administration's decision to close the US Agency for International Development has drawn widespread criticism from congressional Democrats and raised questions about the influence billionaire ally Elon Musk wields over the federal government.

The United States is the world's largest source of foreign assistance by far, although several European countries allocate a much bigger share of their budgets.

While aid to Africa dwarfs the roughly $2 billion that Latin America receives annually, the Western Hemisphere has long been a spending priority of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Here is a look at USAID's impact around the world: Protecting the Amazon rainforest and fighting cocaine in South America USAID has been critical in providing humanitarian assistance in Colombia, conservation efforts in the Brazilian Amazon and coca eradication in Peru. Recent USAID money has also supported emergency humanitarian aid to more than 2.8 million Venezuelans who fled economic crisis.

In 2024 alone, the agency transferred some USD 45 million to the UN World Food Programme, mostly to assist Venezuelans.

In Brazil, USAID's largest initiative is the Partnership for the Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity, which focuses on conservation and improving livelihoods for Indigenous peoples and other rainforest communities.

Over in Peru, part of USAID's USD 135 million funding in 2024 was dedicated to financing cocaine-production alternatives such as coffee and cacao. The humanitarian agency has been seeking to curb production of the drug since the early 1980s.

Disease response, girls' education and free school lunches in Africa Last year, the US gave the sub-Saharan region more than USD 6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance. But since Trump's announcement, HIV patients in Africa found locked doors at clinics funded by an acclaimed US programme that helped rein in the global AIDS epidemic.

Known as one of the world's most successful foreign aid program, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has been credited with saving more than 25 million lives, largely in Africa.

“The world is baffled,” said Aaron Motsoaledi, the health minister of South Africa, the country with the most people living with HIV, after the US freeze on aid.

Motsoaledi says the US funds nearly 20 per cent of the USD 2.3 billion needed each year to run South Africa's HIV/AIDS programme through PEPFAR, and now the biggest response to a single disease in history is under threat.

Meanwhile, without US aid, other groups can't give volunteers allowances for food and public transport as they do outreach to keep girls in school and out of early marriages.

In civil-war-torn Sudan, which is grappling with cholera, malaria and measles, the aid freeze means 600,000 people will be at risk of catching and spreading those diseases, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.

Support for democracy and media in Myanmar The freeze of foreign assistance from USAID include USD 39 million for rights, democracy, and media in Myanmar, whose military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, a human rights group said on Thursday.

The group Human Rights Myanmar said the frozen funds “are vital for organisations challenging military rule and promoting democracy, which advance US interests by upholding American values and countering China's authoritarian influence”.

Myanmar's military government is the most repressive in Southeast Asia, clamping down on free media, imprisoning thousands of nonviolent critics and political rivals and carrying out a brutal war against pro-democracy resistance forces, heedless of civilian casualties.

The freeze includes ”USD 8 million for seven projects defending human rights; USD 30 million for nine initiatives promoting democracy; and USD 1 million for two programs supporting independent media,” it said.

Human Rights Myanmar, whose members are rights workers forced to act covertly inside the Southeast Asian nation, said that the freeze also “suspended USD 22 million for humanitarian aid, USD 36 million for agriculture, USD 22 million for health and USD 30 million for education”.

The civil war in Myanmar has caused a severe humanitarian crisis, especially affecting more than 3 million displaced people, according to UN estimates.

A busy shelter left without a doctor in Mexico In the southern Mexican city of Villahermosa, the Peace Oasis of the Holy Spirit Amparito shelter is one of several beneficiaries of US humanitarian assistance to those fleeing persecution, crisis or violence.

However, under the funding freeze, the charitable organization that runs the shelter had to cut its only doctor as well as a social worker and child psychologist. The shelter has since appealed to the Mexican government for alternate funding for programmes managed by the United Nations to pay for flights and bus rides to Mexico's border with Guatemala for migrants who want to return home.

“The crisis is only going to worsen,” the shelter said in a statement. “The most affected will be the population we serve.” Wartime help in Ukraine US funding in Ukraine has helped to pay for fuel for evacuation vehicles, salaries for aid workers, legal and psychological support, and tickets to help evacuees reach safer locations.

That includes the cost of using a concert hall in eastern Ukraine as a temporary center for civilians fleeing the relentless Russian bombardment. That shelter is now in peril because 60 per cent of the costs — equivalent of USD 7,000 a month to run — were being covered by the US.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his government expects USD 300 million to USD 400 million in aid to be cut. Most of that was for the energy sector that has been targeted by Russia. (AP) PY PY