At the entrance of St. Anthony Community Health Center, some 6 miles north of Beirut, a sticker reads, “USAID – From the American People – International Medical Corps.” It is a designation that no longer applies.

On 20 January, the U.S. administration issued an executive order freezing all government foreign assistance, initially for three months, through several departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The order was accompanied by a statement indicating the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”

The sudden freeze in U.S. government funding, vital for thousands of humanitarian projects — U.S. foreign assistance in 2024 totaled $56 billion worldwide — reverberated across the globe and stunned nonprofit agencies and their beneficiaries.

The decision reached St. Anthony Community Health Center quickly. Run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, the center received a stop-work order from International Medical Corps, which had been directing U.S. government funding to the health center since 2008.

“On a Sunday night, they sent us a message telling us that from Monday onward, they would stop covering the consultations, the blood tests, the medicines, the medical equipment and the medical imaging,” said Dr. Joelle Khalife, the dispensary’s medical director.

Initially, International Medical Corps only paused the funding, which represented a third of the health center’s annual budget.

“Two weeks later, the team explained to us, in a very courteous way, that our contract with them was terminated,” she said.

The consequences for the health center, which cares for 2,000 people monthly, were immediate.

“When we started charging our patients for what International Medical Corps used to cover, some of them stopped coming,” said Dr. Khalife. “Our patients come to us because they don’t have the financial means to access health care in private hospitals.”

“It was hard to explain to our patients how a decision taken in the United States leads to their health care expenses not being covered anymore,” she said. “But the Lord is with us. We will not close because of this funding problem.”

Good Shepherd Sister Antoinette Assaf, who manages international partnerships in Lebanon for her community, said these cuts have made an already difficult situation more challenging. Access to funding has become “increasingly hard” since the COVID-19 pandemic, she explained, and donor requirements have increased across the board as funding has decreased.

In mid-March, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced 83 percent of USAID contracts were canceled and those remaining were integrated into the State Department, which had absorbed USAID in February. A month later, a final list of terminated grants had not yet been made public. 

However, Geneva Solutions, an online news site that covers the work of international aid organizations, reported on 4 April that a leaked document indicated 77 percent of USAID grants — or “6,239 awards, worth $36bn in aid” — were terminated.

On the list, the World Health Organization, United Nations Development Program, Mercy Corps and UNICEF were slated to lose from one-third to 98 percent of their U.S. government funding. U.N. Women and U.N.-Habitat were slated to lose all U.S. government funding.

The administration reconsidered a few cuts and, on 9 April, restored funding to World Food Program projects in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Ecuador and Somalia and at least four awards to the International Organization for Migration.

Christian organizations also were impacted: Caritas, the humanitarian and development organization of the Catholic Church, was slated to lose 25 percent of its U.S. government funding; World Vision, 16 percent.

“These budget cuts in development aid and international cooperation are detrimental to human development, especially affecting programs supporting refugees and other vulnerable groups,” said Karim el-Mufti, professor of political science, international affairs and international law at the Jesuit-run St. Joseph University of Beirut.

This change in U.S. policy sheds light on the weight of U.S. assistance globally and throughout the Middle East, he said.

“Lebanon holds the prize of dependency on foreign aid, which is the price of having a collapsed state,” said Mr. Mufti. “The Lebanese struggle to access basic services. Programs that were supported by the United States were very useful in terms of access to health care, education and basic amenities.”

In 2024, Hezbollah, a powerful political and heavily armed force of Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim community, plunged the country into a two-month war with Israel, with much of the fighting contained in the south and the Bekaa Valley. That year, Lebanon had received nearly $390 million in U.S. assistance, 63 percent for economic development and the rest for aid to support the nation’s underfunded military. The U.S. also funded 20 percent of all U.N. projects in the country.

CNEWA has not received funding from the U.S. government since 2008, so its ability to maintain current funding commitments to partners remains intact.

“Out of 100 projects we support in Lebanon, so far only St. Anthony Community Health Center and another medical center are directly affected by the U.S. cuts,” said Michel Constantin, CNEWA’s regional director for Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. 

However, since January, other humanitarian organizations have contacted his office with “requests to discuss funding issues.”

“I doubt we will be able to support them in a significant way, as our budget for 2025 is already finalized,” said Mr. Constantin. 

Mr. Constantin said while he thinks most church institutions may find alternative funders, “the cuts will certainly affect the whole social situation of the country in terms of the level and quality of services provided.”

In Lebanon, U.S. government funding supported education, health care and nutrition programs, said Laith Alajlouni, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Manama, Bahrain.

Programs for Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Lebanon, as well as internally displaced Lebanese, will be affected. The funding cuts also are expected to “slow down the humanitarian recovery and the reconstruction of Lebanon,” he said, which the World Bank has estimated at $11 billion.

Iraq and Jordan are also long-term recipients of U.S.-government assistance. In 2024, Iraq received $333 million, while the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which enjoys “most-favored-nation trade” status with the United States, received $1.75 billion in U.S. assistance.

The impact of the funding cuts on each country is likely to differ vastly, but the case of Jordan stands out, said Mr. Alajlouni.

“Half of U.S. foreign assistance [to Jordan] goes to [Jordan’s] national budget, and the other half is channeled toward the development sector through USAID,” he said.

An increased national deficit and a major decrease in access to health care, education and potable water are expected as a result. According to The National, a state-run newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, 35,000 people in Jordan had lost their jobs to the funding cuts by early February, adding to the 21.4 percent unemployment rate at the end of 2024.

In Iraq, half of U.S. government assistance was directed to the military. The stoppage “will likely impact Iraq’s ability to defend itself against ISIS,” said Mr. Alajlouni, and may likely “push the country toward Iran.” 

In Iraq’s development sector, the projects impacted are tied chiefly to democratization programs and refugees. According to the latest figures available from the UNHCR in April 2023, Iraq had 280,000 refugees and 1.2 million internally displaced people.

Ra’ed Bahou, CNEWA’s regional director for Jordan and Iraq, said CNEWA’s more than 100 projects across Jordan and Iraq were untouched by the funding cuts, but the impact on other organizations is evident.

“Key organizations, such as the World Food Program, Catholic Relief Services, Jesuit Refugee Service, are affected, with reduced capacity for food aid, education and emergency response,” he said.

Mr. Bahou anticipates “a lot more financial pressure” on his office, “especially within the health care sector,” without having the financial means “to fill the gap.”

CNEWA is among a small group of Catholic organizations, including L’Oeuvre d’Orient, an initiative of the Catholic Church in France, whose projects were left unscathed by the cuts.

Vincent Gelot, country director for L’Oeuvre d’Orient in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, said his agency’s partners — religious congregations, dioceses and local associations — “are almost never helped by large international organizations and large funding bodies because they are private or because they are faith-based.”

However, Karam Abi Yazbeck, regional coordinator for Caritas Internationalis in the Middle East and North Africa, said “40 percent of our budget globally comes from the U.S. government.” Another major donor was Catholic Relief Services, which reportedly lost 62 percent of its funding in the government cuts. 

He said Caritas had “a lot of concerns, as some communities rely heavily on our services.” In April, it was in the process of identifying new sources of funding and considering whether to reduce activities or close its office in Jordan.

Caritas Iraq lost about 20 percent of its annual budget — nearly $700,000 overnight. In response, it laid off 25 employees and was shifting its activities toward “projects that are less costly in order for our office to survive,” said Nabil Nissan, executive director of Caritas Iraq.

The funding cuts will impact the minority Christian communities in Iraq and Jordan — respectively less than 2 percent and 8 percent of the population. 

“This happens in a context of high unemployment and difficult socioeconomic conditions for all segments of Iraqi society,” said Mr. Nissan. 

“There are only rare opportunities of employment within state institutions, so [people affected] will be pushed to emigrate, which is a big problem for the Christian community.

“Implementing a project strengthens the presence of the church in the community,” he added. “It sends a message that Christianity is here in Iraq, and we demonstrate our values.”

Church-run organizations in the Middle East are in the process of adapting to the new funding context and are looking to Europe for additional assistance.

However, Mr. Alajlouni in Bahrain believes, even if European partners jump in, “gaps will remain” because “U.S. funding was significant.”