You'll have to disagree with a lot of scholars, in addition to this HN comment, to make your point. This is the '90 million' study:

> This finding indicates that 91 839 663 (95% CI 85 690 135–98 291 626) all-age deaths, including 30 391 980 (26 023 132–35 482 636) in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction (RR 0·35, 0·29-0·42) in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% (RR 0·49, 0·39–0·61) from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% (RR 0·50, 0·40–0·62) from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths) [1]

30B+ is pocket change for the US, but makes a massive impact in poorer countries.

It also had a soft power effect that the current US government seems completely oblivious to [2].

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(25)01186-9/full...

[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/23353912

[3] https://time.com/article/2026/05/15/usaid-shutdown-rise-glob...