(CNN) — President Donald Trump is eagerly dismantling an agency that was once championed by his daughter and senior adviser, Ivanka Trump.
The work of the US Agency for International Development was important enough to the president that during his 2019 State of the Union address, he unveiled a new key priority within the agency to be spearheaded by his daughter.
“As part of our commitment to improving opportunity for women everywhere, this Thursday we are launching the first ever government-wide initiative focused on economic empowerment for women in developing countries,” he said in the House of Representatives.
Days later in the Oval Office, joined by Ivanka Trump, top officials and women directly impacted by US funding for women’s economic empowerment abroad, he signed a presidential memorandum establishing W-GDP, the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity initiative, calling it a matter of national security and a “tremendous step for women.”
But six years later, Trump has frozen nearly all foreign assistance, and his administration is gutting USAID, which he’s said is run by “radical lunatics.” USAID staff around the world were supposed to be placed on leave with orders to return to the US on Friday, but a federal judge that afternoon temporarily ordered the administration to halt its plans.
The Trump’s administration’s targeting of USAID is hitting hard for some beneficiaries of Ivanka Trump’s work overseas.
“Folks that she interacted with and that she gave hope and promise to – that’s been ripped away from them. … I mean, we’re just absolutely devastated,” said a current USAID employee.
Nino Zambakhidze, a Georgian farmer showcased during Trump’s signing ceremony, said the upheaval has been “shocking” and comes at a time when the “world already feels upside down.”
“When I saw President Trump was elected again, I thought it was going to bring more support for women’s economic empowerment because he loved this program,” added Zambakhidze, who said she launched a successful farm in her eastern European country with the help of US financial assistance after four lending institutions shot her down because she was a woman.
She came to see Trump and his daughter as “the ones willing to invest in women in order to get more equality and a more peaceful and sustainable world,” and now is struggling to understand “what the hell is going on.”
A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump did not respond to multiple inquiries regarding her stance on the administration’s moves to disband USAID. Having decamped to Florida, she’s largely left politics and is not playing the same role she did during her father’s first four years in the White House. The White House did not return CNN’s request for comment.
Donald Trump’s willingness to abandon a program he once championed is illustrative of a greater pivot from his past approach to foreign aid. It aligns with his campaign pledge to slash federal spending, a promise now being carried out with striking swiftness by tech billionaire Elon Musk, leaving government workers scrambling to keep pace. The move also echoes the sharp critique of foreign assistance outlined in Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint for a potential second Trump term written by many of his allies and former advisers.
Trump’s reversal on USAID has nevertheless left the international community reeling. Even as he proposed successive budgets slashing its funding, Trump during his first term also gave USAID a seat at the table as he shaped his national defense strategy, said Noam Unger, the director of the Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That defense blueprint, released a year after Trump took office, called past work boosting developing countries “some of the greatest triumphs of American statecraft” and outlined plans to unleash private sector investment to spread US influence and progress worldwide.
“There was a very conscious effort in the first Trump administration to leverage tools of US foreign policy, including aid, to counter the malign influence of adversaries and rivals of the US on the global stage,” Unger said.
The broad support for foreign aid within his first administration was on display during Trump’s W-GDP signing ceremony. Joined by lawmakers from both parties, United Nations Ambassador John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump declared his “national security strategy says investing in women helps achieve greater peace and prosperity for nations.”
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said the program would unleash $12 trillion in world GDP, “creating another China without the trade deficit.” Trump grinned in response.
“Economic stability is good defense policy,” Trump’s acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said during the signing.
Then, turning to Ivanka Trump, Shanahan added: “I’m hoping your initiative will put me out of business.”
Ivanka Trump’s close work with USAID reached around the world
During her father’s first administration, Ivanka Trump personally worked with USAID to develop the W-GDP initiative, building relationships at the agency and within the private sector; leaning on the agency’s development expertise and global footprint to create a three-pronged program aimed at women’s education and entrepreneurship; and eliminating the legal, regulatory and cultural barriers that prevent women from participating in the economy.
A relatively noncontroversial, apolitical project, it was, by many measures, a major success and signature achievement of her legacy. Though it was rebranded under the Biden administration, the initiative continued to thrive and impact women around the globe. USAID’s initial $50 million investment in the fund was boosted to $300 million by its third year, according to a fact sheet provided by a current USAID employee earlier this week.
“Because it was one of the good news stories that came out of that White House – economically empowering women is a good thing, most people can agree on that – she was very interested and involved,” said one source who worked closely with Ivanka Trump and her team on the initiative, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
The program reached 12 million women in its first year, according to background material provided by the White House at the time.
“When women are economically empowered, society prospers and peace prevails,” Ivanka Trump said at the time in a video promoting the work.
Lillian Achomo, a Uganda-based project manager, joined the Trumps in the Oval Office as the president held the signing ceremony establishing W-GDP.
Recalling that February 2019 day, Achomo told CNN she was shocked by the attention on her work, which was part of a women-led effort to provide affordable internet to rural communities and had benefited from a 2018 grant from an Ivanka Trump-spearheaded program through USAID that served as a precursor to W-GDP.
“Our work is actually recognized, you know? Our work in the communities down in northern Uganda is actually recognized by America, by American president,” Achomo said. “Supporting a woman with just some little capital causes, really, a multiplier effect, and to me it was an opportunity to really air that out, for him to put emphasis on it. And I was very appreciative that that opportunity was given to me.”
The project, Achomo said, impacted thousands of people in Kenya, Namibia, Senegal and Morocco, and would not have been possible without that USAID funding.
“It changed the entire organization. … It’s really changed a lot of lives,” she said.
Ivanka Trump sent Achomo a personal letter after their visit.
“I was deeply touched by your story, and appreciated your contributions to our discussion on the importance of global women’s economic empowerment as a catalyst for global peace, prosperity, and stability,” Trump wrote in the letter, now framed in Achomo’s home.
The White House continued to champion Ivanka Trump’s initiative and its reach. Shortly after she joined then-USAID administrator Mark Green on a trip to Cote d’Ivoire, the administration touted the amendment of the nation’s marriage law, which allowed women and men to have equal and joint ownership over household assets for the first time, as an example of the program’s influence.
Green, now the president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was not available for an interview with CNN, a spokesman for the organization said. His successor John Barsa, reached by phone at his Virginia home, told CNN he was not speaking to media at this time.
After the first Trump administration, W-GDP was re-launched as the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund (GEEA) and continued to invest an additional $300 million in direct resources, according to the fact sheet provided by a current USAID staff member.
As of April 2024, 55 of the program’s awards were active and were still being implemented, the fact sheet noted. The projects included issues of women’s lands rights, closing the digital divide, advancing women’s leadership in agriculture, and food security, entrepreneurship and leadership in the energy sector. More than 60 additional projects were launched under GEEA, according to the fact sheet.
A 2024 USAID progress report chronicling the impact of GEEA obtained by CNN said that its investments in women’s economic security programs “reached more than 686,000 individuals across 87 countries”; “supported more than 18,000 women to expand their entrepreneurial and digital skills, labor rights, and employment opportunities”; and “assisted more than 26,000 women to receive legally recognized and documented land or marine tenure rights.”
But on January 27, with Donald Trump back in power, the GEEA program was subject to a stop order halting USAID operations. The future of the program is unclear.
Getting rid of programs like GEEA, the source who worked closely with Ivanka Trump said, is “making the US weaker and it’s putting Americans in danger, ultimately.”
Zambakhidze, the Georgian farmer, remained optimistic the president would eventually reverse course, citing his past support for his daughter’s work through USAID.
“Once they review the different projects, I hope they will see the benefits they brought to rural women in different countries,” she said, “and maybe they’ll start the programs again.”
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