Does as little as 10% of USAID go to help people in need? What that claim gets wrong

As the Trump administration moved to pause foreign aid, Republicans repeated a misleading claim that as little as 10% of foreign aid from a key agency goes to help people in need.

President Donald Trump told reporters Feb. 2 that the U.S. Agency for International Development, aka USAID, is "run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we're getting them out." Billionaire business owner Elon Musk, who oversees a government cost-cutting commission, is leading an effort to shut down the agency.

USAID, the U.S. government’s international humanitarian and development arm, leads U.S. efforts in many countries to provide food and medicine and supports developing countries’ economic growth. 

U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., appearing Feb. 2 on CBS’ "Face the Nation," said when it comes to USAID funding, "10 to 30 cents on the dollar is what actually goes to aid. So there's not the right amount of command and control that's going on with the way that it's set up currently." 

Mast’s interview comments left viewers with the impression that most of the funding doesn’t go to people in need.

"I mean, you could, you could almost say — this is a little bit hyperbole — but there's probably more dollars that go towards state dinners around the (Washington) D.C. Beltway than what actually goes into rice and beans abroad," Mast said. But he said during the Trump administration, "It's going to be 99.99% of cents on the dollar actually go towards what it's intended, instead of people around the Beltway."

The 10 to 30 cents number Mast cited is what USAID said it gives to local organizations in foreign countries. But Mast mischaracterizes what happens with the rest of the money. 

A January USAID report recapping 2024 said that about 12.1% of all USAID funding goes directly to local organizations in foreign countries, including nongovernmental, private sector and government partners. The rest of the funding is distributed through international organizations and companies, some of which are based in the U.S., that spend it on food, medicine and other assistance in developing countries or pass it to organizations based in those countries, said George Ingram, senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. 

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor in the Obama administration, disputed Mast’s statement.

"Mast is referring to the ‘localization’ percentage — the share of USAID funds that reach the needy through small local organizations," versus through large global humanitarian organizations, Malinowski wrote Feb. 3 on X.

Mast’s office did not respond to our emailed request for his evidence. 

USAID’s future remained uncertain Feb. 5. A message on the agency’s website said that all agency personnel will be placed on leave Feb. 7 with some exceptions. We contacted the agency Feb. 3 for comment but received no reply.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Feb. 3 that he is the agency’s acting administrator but had delegated the authority to someone else. Also Feb. 3, Rubio on Fox News accused USAID of "rank insubordination," adding, "We had no choice but to bring this thing under control." He seemed open to reforming USAID rather than abolishing it.

"American foreign assistance programs are not charity; they are strategic investments that directly advance U.S. security, economic interests, and global influence," said Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, president and CEO of the Global Health Council, an agency that works with more than 130 organizations across 150 countries. 

Experts on USAID said Mast likely was referring to the January report about the agency’s efforts to direct more funding to local partners. 

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The report says in 2024, "USAID provided $2.1 billion directly to local non-governmental, private sector and government partners, or 12.1 percent of USAID’s acquisitions and assistance (A&A) and government-to-government (G2G) funding."  

That number falls within Mast’s cited range of 10 to 30 cents on the dollar. But that "doesn’t mean that’s all that goes to the country," said Jen Kates, an expert on global health at KFF, a U.S. health policy organization.

Here’s how federal foreign aid is distributed: Congress appropriates funding, often for a specific program such as HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, nutrition or maternal health. But Congress often doesn’t dictate which organizations receive the money. 

The money then flows to U.S. agencies including USAID, which distributes aid mostly through what it calls "implementing partners," such as private contractors, nonprofit organizations, foreign governments, international organizations and other U.S. government agencies, according to the Congressional Research Service. 

Those partners are often based in the U.S. In 2024 more than $1 billion of USAID funding went to American small businesses.

A single organization can receive USAID money to provide tuberculosis prevention treatment, malaria medicines or antibiotics in several foreign countries. These nonlocal organizations are not counted in that 12% figure.

The process is not new; foreign aid has been distributed this way during Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump’s first term. 

USAID set a goal in 2021 to increase the share of aid that goes to local partners, and that had bipartisan support. 

Before Mast commented about USAID, other similar claims cited a Jan. 7 PBS interview that briefly quoted Walter Kerr, co-executive director of the nonprofit organization Unlock Aid. Kerr said, "It’s actually less than 10% of our foreign assistance dollars flowing through USAID is actually reaching those communities." 

Unlock Aid, which formed in 2021, advocates for improvements to U.S. aid, did not respond to our emails requesting comment. 

Musk and Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, reshared the PBS interview, seeming to cite Kerr’s comments as evidence of USAID corruption.

Mast said when it comes to USAID, "10 to 30 cents on the dollar is what actually goes to aid." 

Mast appeared to be referring to a USAID report on 2024 funding that said about 12.1% of the agency’s money goes directly to small local organizations in foreign countries. 

But money provided to local partners is only one portion of the aid. The rest of the money is distributed through "implementing partners" —  organizations and companies that operate internationally and which are often based in the U.S. The implementing partners spend the money on food, medicine and other assistance in developing countries or pass it to local organizations based in those countries.

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Chief Correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this fact-check.