What Has Happened to U.S. Government Capabilities for International Humanitarian Assistance, Disaster Response, and Resilience

Critical Questions by Noam Unger

Published November 13, 2025

This analysis is a component of Part II of a three-part series, A New Landscape for Development, that examines the context, current state, and early impacts of the dramatic changes to U.S. foreign assistance in 2025.

A New Landscape for Development

The unprecedented realignment of U.S. foreign policy since the start of the second Trump administration has fundamentally truncated and altered the capability of the United States to respond to humanitarian crises and bolster the resilience of developing country partners to weather disasters around the world.

With all the change that is happening within U.S. foreign assistance during an era of intense geostrategic competition for partnerships across the Global South, policymakers in the administration and Congress should be asking: How can the United States build the foundations of new and better approaches to advancing American interests and developing country interests at the same time? As those policymakers and an even wider group of practitioners think through a modernized approach to international engagement and assistance over the coming months and years, it can be instructive to consider recent, current, and potential U.S. government capabilities for humanitarian action and resilience support.

Q1: What has happened to U.S. international disaster response and resilience support capabilities?

A1: In recent decades, the share of U.S. foreign assistance disbursements dedicated to humanitarian affairs grew significantly as a proportion of the whole. Between 2001 and the start of the second Trump administration in 2025, that share essentially doubled from just over 10 percent to just under 20 percent.

Although the State Department has held responsibilities for specific refugee-related diplomacy and funding (to the United Nations) through its Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, most of the funding, capabilities, and systems for U.S. humanitarian efforts resided with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The first Trump administration actively led reforms within USAID that merged the Food for Peace office with the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance to create a consolidated Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) that could cover the emergency provision of food and other aid. With deep expertise covering all aspects of humanitarian action, from logistics and security considerations to emergency nutrition, shelter, financing, and beyond, BHA was globally recognized as a center of knowledge and experience in saving lives, alleviating human suffering, and reducing the social and economic impacts of disasters.

Led from Washington, but with a footprint in many regions and countries by leveraging USAID's broader presence around the world, BHA enabled the United States to have boots on the ground rapidly, often within 24 to 48 hours of a disaster. This was accomplished through a robust incident command system involving Response Management Teams (RMTs) at headquarters and Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) mobilized in the field. DARTs have been deployed in response to major earthquakes in countries such as Haiti, Turkey, and Nepal, as well as to floods in Pakistan, typhoons in the Philippines, Ebola outbreaks in West Africa, and conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and many other countries. DARTs have even been deployed to support very advanced economies, as was the case when an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan in 2011.

The Trump administration dismantled USAID in 2025, and by July, the staff of more than 1,000 that had constituted BHA was reduced to a group of roughly 50 people embedded within the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration at the State Department.

Prior to the second Trump administration, 43 percent of global annual public international humanitarian funding came from the United States, making it a major pillar of the entire international system for crisis response. President Trump's FY 2026 budget request indicates that humanitarian-focused funding will be cut significantly. If Congress accedes, the funds typically associated with humanitarian action will also be restructured. Historically, humanitarian assistance funding has been separated into three accounts: International Disaster Assistance (IDA), Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA), and Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA). Under the FY 2026 budget proposal, IDA and MRA would be combined into a new International Humanitarian Assistance fund and would receive approximately $2.5 billion. In comparison to combined IDA and MRA appropriations in FY 2025, this new account would represent a 66.3 percent decrease in funding. The ERMA account would see a strikingly large increase in funding, by roughly 1,500,000 percent, but the purpose of that expansion would largely be "to support efforts aimed at curbing illegal migration by facilitating the voluntary return of migrants from the United States to their country of origin or legal status."

Beyond emergency response capabilities, USAID also possessed considerable resources, in terms of staffing and programs, to partner with communities and countries to bolster their underlying resilience in the face of catastrophes. Institutionally, a significant share of the thought leadership and programming for that work stemmed from the Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, but resilience work was also distributed across the agency's many other offices and missions around the world. In the years immediately prior to the transition from the Biden administration to the Trump administration, much of USAID's support for countries facing mounting physical risks from extreme weather-related disasters fell under the frame of climate change policy and the President's Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), an interagency initiative established by the Biden administration and co-led by USAID and the State Department. Although some of USAID's food security assistance activities from the Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security are being absorbed by the State Department's Office of Global Food Security, much of the infrastructure and talent that enabled the U.S. government to assist developing countries in building disaster resilience were dismissed amid the razing of USAID.

Q2: At a practical level, how does this impact the United States' ability to prepare for and respond to humanitarian crises?

A2: The closure of USAID and the cuts to its resilience-building and disaster response efforts have effectively, and in the near term, crippled the ability of the United States to lead internationally on these issues.

The drastic reductions in attention, funding, and staff mean that instead of hours or a day, it will take significantly more time for U.S. government assistance to be delivered, if it is to be delivered at all. Perhaps most illustrative of this was the United States' slow and considerably limited response to the 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar on March 28, 2025. In years past, the United States had been able to send in first responders within a day of a disaster, as was the case in 2023 when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Syria and Turkey. However, following this disaster, the United States was notably absent. It took the United States over three days to announce that a team would be sent to the region, and, once the small group of three U.S. responders arrived to help with the recovery, they were informed via email that they would be laid off, effectively halting disaster response efforts. In terms of disaster response funding, while the United States did initially pledge $2 million (and then raised it to $9 million) as part of a coalition of international donors for emergency assistance, it was well below the funding level typical for a U.S. response.

All of this has taken place against a backdrop of increased geostrategic competition between the United States and China. By taking several steps back, the United States provided space for China to visibly step forward. China's response to the earthquake in Myanmar, for example, arrived within 72 hours, included hundreds of people and pledges to provide $13.7 million in aid. While humanitarianism has historically been associated with principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, in practice, cross-border humanitarian aid provided by governments has always been laden with motives associated with international politics. By dismantling so much of the aid system that had been created to achieve foreign policy goals, the United States has counterproductively discarded key tools from its toolbox and disregarded enlightened self-interest.

On the resilience front, for many developing countries, issues around extreme weather and mounting physical risks are rising on their political agendas. This is especially true concerning investments in critical infrastructure. Businesses are also increasingly paying attention and making related investments and policy demands. According to a recent survey by the World Economic Forum on perceptions of global risks, respondents ranked extreme weather events as the most severely impactful risk over the next 10 years.

Pressures to vie for strategic developing country partnerships by supporting better resilience and faster recovery from catastrophes are on a trajectory to increase, but the U.S. government has just hollowed out its associated capabilities. The United States is going to want to respond efficiently and effectively to some crises overseas, but the skill sets, systems, and ground-truthing (not to mention the procurement and disbursement capabilities) that USAID built up over its 64-year lifespan are not duplicated at the State Department. The administration and Congress are going to have to think through how best to spend funding to address the increasing number of disasters facing developing country partners.

Q3: Are there innovative and cost-effective approaches that the Trump administration could seek to scale within a much tighter budget?

A3: Unless and until the government builds back its disaster response and resilience support capabilities, there is no question that it will do less, and in fewer places. It is plausible, however, that the Trump administration will want to act in the face of certain pressures. These could include political pressure to be associated with a response to a devastating international disaster, the imperative to forge partnerships with developing countries key to geostrategic competition or critical resources, or other economic opportunities associated with supply chains and the emerging resilience economy. Regardless of the specific mix of reasons, the administration is likely to be more drawn to deals and cost-effective approaches that relate to investments and the leverage of global capital markets than it will be to more traditional aid.

The administration is also not about to replicate the system and set of humanitarian capacities it just dismantled. As a result of its disruptions to the existing system and its stark budget slashing, the administration may be particularly inclined to innovate. One critique of the longstanding system is that it overly relies on costly responses after a catastrophe, with too little emphasis on anticipation and risk reduction. Another is that it has not yielded the predictable and timely funding that developing countries in crisis need. With clear connections to the private sector, predictability, and timely interventions that can lead to cost savings, prearranged disaster risk finance could be one area of innovation that the Trump administration could seek to scale.

Insurance, for example, is one type of prearranged disaster risk financing that could be a focus for the administration as it engages with developing countries in a more commercial manner oriented toward investment, infrastructure, technology, and enabling environments for trade and business operations. Partnering with developing countries to build more robust insurance programs and markets could enhance investments and investor confidence, help secure critical infrastructure and related supply chains, and expand the prevalence of financial systems led by the United States and its allies. An internal memo circulated within the Trump administration's foreign policy networks in March revealed that at least some of the administration's advisers are supportive of this direction. Within the memo's calls for a more commercial mindset, it noted, "A major emphasis should be the launch of a development insurance facility."

By promoting and leveraging insurance (beyond the political risk insurance it already provides through the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation), the United States could demonstrate a different mode of engaging with developing countries that can showcase cost-effectiveness, financial predictability, and market-oriented private sector partnerships. One proposal is for the government to lean into existing public-private mechanisms to expand macro insurance in developing countries by using even just 2 percent of the $14.5 billion the United States was spending annually on international humanitarian response.

As extreme weather events and humanitarian crises become more frequent and catastrophic, it is in the geopolitical and economic interests of the United States to help its partners respond and build resilience to future disasters. For more information on scalable risk management efforts at the intersection of disasters, risk retention, insurance, and what the U.S. government could do, view "What's Next for Disaster Risk Financing?"

Noam Unger is vice president of the Global Development Department, director of the Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative, and a senior fellow with the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Programs & Projects

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Congressional Testimony by Noam Unger - February 26, 2025