USAID is going away. Here's what it's been doing in South America

BRASILANDIA, Brazil (AP) — The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development will deliver a major blow to efforts including humanitarian assistance in Colombia, conservation efforts in Brazil and coca eradication in Peru — South American countries that have been a priority for the support.

Even if some foreign aid resumes after the 90-day suspension ordered by President Donald Trump, many USAID-backed projects focus on areas he has derided as ideological: climate change, biodiversity and minority and women's rights, so several recipients fear their projects are now dead.

Colombia has long been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in South America. Recent USAID money has supported emergency humanitarian aid to more than 2.8 million Venezuelans who fled economic crisis. In 2024 alone, the agency transferred some $45 million to the U.N. World Food Programme, mostly to assist them.

The end of U.S. humanitarian assistance in Colombia, Brazil and other Latin American countries is another huge setback for Venezuelans abroad. Last week, the Trump administration also revoked a temporary immigration status that has allowed roughly 600,000 people from Venezuela to stay in the U.S. The first large group could be deported in about two months.

“Trump’s cuts will hit Latin America’s most vulnerable populations, including millions of Venezuelan migrants and refugees, as grassroots organizations providing essential care, guidance, and food are left without funding,” Bram Ebus, a Bogota-based consultant at the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press. “Migrant populations are targeted by organized crime and armed groups. If aid projects are not resumed quickly, it will allow these groups to abuse and exploit vulnerable migrants.”

Despite the fact that the U.S. is the largest source of aid to Colombia, President Gustavo Petro said some of this help is not welcome and has to go. “Hundreds of immigration officials who guard our borders were paid by the United States. This aid is poison," he said during a cabinet meeting Monday. “That should never be allowed. We are going to pay with our money.”

In 2024, the agency paid nearly $385 million to Colombia.

Trump told reporters Monday that shutting down USAID “should have been done a long time ago.” Billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading government cost reduction in the new administration, said the agency was run by “radical left lunatics.”

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 forest communities. About two-thirds of the world's largest rainforest is in Brazil.

One Brazilian organization USAID has supported is the Amazon-based Roraima Indigenous Council, which operates in 35 areas including the territory of the Yanomami tribe, totaling some 157,000 square kilometers (60,600 square miles), larger than Greece. This direct support is representative of a shift at USAID over the last few years, to prioritize funding grassroots organizations.

In a region vulnerable to illegal gold mining and drug-trafficking, the Roraima Indigenous Council is using the money for improved family farming, adapting to climate change and income generation for women.

Now everything is at risk, Edinho Macuxi, the tuxaua (leader) of the Indigenous Council, told the AP. In recent weeks, his organization, which represents some 60,000 people, laid off workers and canceled activities due to lack of funds. “The partnership with USAID has existed for seven years. If the decision is to end it, this will shake our organizational structure and projects that are very important for strengthening the economy and autonomy of Indigenous peoples," he said.

“Our message to President Trump is that he should maintain the resources not only for Brazil but for other countries as well. In Brazil, Indigenous peoples who access this funding are the ones who effectively keep most of the forest standing, ensuring life not just for people in Brazil, but also the world,” Macuxi said.

In recent years, USAID also supported arguably the most successful sustainable resource effort in the Amazon, the managed fishing of pirarucu, the region's famously giant fish. The U.S. funds built a slaughterhouse where fishers could work during the legal catch. Indigenous and riverine communities helped recover what was an endangered species, at the same time getting income and food.

In 2024, USAID disbursed $22.6 million to Brazil. Over half, close to $14 million, went to general environmental protection, with the Amazon, which stores crucial amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, as a top priority.

For Peru, the humanitarian agency disbursed some $135 million in 2024. Part of it is to control cocaine production by financing alternatives such as coffee and cacao. Those efforts date back to the early 1980s. Peru is the world's second-largest cocaine producer after Colombia, which runs similar programs financed with American assistance.

In a statement, Peru’s Premier Gustavo Adrianzén said his government will continue the crop substitution program without U.S. funding. The Peruvian National Commission for Development and Life Without Drugs, known as DEVIDA, declined to comment on the new U.S. administration's freeze.

A former DEVIDA chief, Ricardo Soberón, said that USAID's pause is an opportunity to review a partnership that has not been effective. “It has always been conditional assistance, with politics involved. It has been minimal, often delayed, and not integrated with the actions of the Peruvian state,” he told AP.

Soberón said that neighboring Bolivia, which expelled the U.S. agency in 2013, has achieved better results in controlling cocaine production since then. “Despite its problems and external limitations (the economic and political crisis), the withdrawal of USAID has provided Bolivia with a high degree of autonomy to develop social control policies, which have been much more efficient.”

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