Most Greenlanders are descendants of Alaskan stPresident Trump promised countless sweeping actions on day one of his second term. Most of them never materialized. But one of the first major actions President Trump took was to end USAID, the agency responsible for global health programs, food security, disaster relief, and basic humanitarian support. Cutting it wasn’t just a bureaucratic shift; it was a decision with a body count.

In the short term, researchers have estimated that 500,000-700,000 additional deaths per year as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and nutrition programs collapsed.

Over the longer horizon, projections warned of more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children under five, as health systems, sanitation, education, and food programs unravel worldwide. Ending USAID didn’t just halt aid — it stripped away the thin line protecting millions of vulnerable people from preventable death.

Saying that hundreds of thousands have died since USAID support was cut sounds like a distant statistic–cold, abstract, and easy to ignore. Saying that a single infant in the unknown displacement camp in Dikwa, Borno State located in Northeastern Nigeria died of severe malnutrition in his mother’s arms because USAID‒supported food programs destined for the baby’s refugee camp were slashed forces us to confront the human cost in its rawest form.

What kind of prize does one deserve for ending USAID? How does ending this lifeline compare to other actions of President Trump like hiding the identity of statutory child rapists by not releasing the Epstein files, betraying the people of Ukraine on behalf of Vladimir Putin, the Burcher of St. Petersburg, or disappearing Americans off of our streets and out of our homes into detention camps and sometimes to foreign Supermax torture sites and the killing of American citizens by Federal law enforcement agents presumed immune from prosecution.

Do those who elected President Trump to a second term add “ending USAID” to the list of things about which they say: “I didn’t vote for this.” I hope so. But based on current polls, I am certain most of those who voted for President Trump in 2024 would vote for him again if he were on the ballot in 2028. Pretending otherwise, staying quiet as if the outcomes of ending USAID weren’t predictable and horrific, remaining “loyal no matter what” doesn’t absolve any of us of responsibility for being enablers of unspeakable evil.

TIM MANNELLO

Williamsport

Submitted by email