'A travesty and tragedy': Obama, Bush come together to slam Trump's foreign aid cut after study warns over 14 million people could die

As US President Donald Trump's US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding cuts, former presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush have criticised the closure of USAID, in a video farewell for USAID staffers on its last day as an independent organisation.

In a recorded message played in a video conference for USAID staffers on Monday, Obama said that dismantling the agency was “a colossal mistake”.

“Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” Obama said. He further predicted that "sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realise how much you are needed."

While, Bush while talking about the cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), which helps in saving over 25 million lives, said, "Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”

'Over 14 million people could die'

This comes after a study highlighted that more than 14 million of the world's most vulnerable people could die by 2030 because of Trump's cuts.

A new study published in 'The Lancet' alongside a United Nations conference in Spain warned that the rollback of humanitarian funding initiated under the US president could erase two decades of health gains.

Study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) warned that the funding cuts "risk abruptly halting -- and even reversing -- two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations"

He further stressed that the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict for many low and middle-income countries.

"Now is the time to scale up, not scale back," Rasella said.

Notably, the international team of researchers collected data from over 133 nations and assessed that between 2001 and 2021 USAID funding had prevented 91.8 million deaths in developing countries.

The figure even exceeds the projected death toll of World War II.

The USAID has provided over 40 per cent of global humanitarian funding until Trump returned to the White House, for his second term.

But, just two weeks later, Trump's closest ally and advisor Elon Musk boasted to put the agency "through the woodchipper".

Trump’s USAID closure a ‘travesty’