In light of President Trump’s freeze on issuing aid to foreign countries, the former president of Kenya is urging African leaders to quit “crying” and take the 90-day aid pause as a “wakeup call.” 

“This is a wakeup call to Africa to ask what we can do to help ourselves instead of crying. We should ask ourselves what we are going to do to support ourselves,” Uhuru Kenyatta said while speaking at the East Africa Region Global Health Security Summit in Kenya. He added that it’s time for the country to “use our resources for the right thing because we are the ones using these resources for the wrong things.”

The African leader, who served as Kenya’s fourth president between 2013 and 2022, further defended Mr. Trump’s decision to pause aid, asking the gathered leaders, “Why are you crying? It’s not your government. It’s not your country. He has no reason to give you anything.” Mr. Kenyatta added: “I mean, you don’t pay taxes in America. He is appealing to his people.” 

Mr. Trump’s executive order, signed on the day of his inauguration, calls for a 90-day pause in all disbursements of development assistance funds to foreign countries, NGOs, international organizations, and federal contractors. The aid programs will be reviewed to ensure that they are “fully aligned” with the administration’s foreign policy goals. 

“President Trump stated clearly that the United States is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people. Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative,” the State Department announced. “The Secretary is proud to protect America’s investment with a deliberate and judicious review of how we spend foreign assistance dollars overseas.” 

Sub-Saharan Africa is often the largest annual recipient of American aid and much of the assistance is directed toward health programs. In 2024, the humanitarian assistance provided by the American government totaled nearly $6.6 billion. Total aid to the continent has hovered around $8 billion a year for the past decade, according to the Congressional Research Service. 

Over the past five years, a major chunk of those funds — around $931 million on average — has been directed to assist Kenya alone. The American government is the single largest funder of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in the country. America has also ramped up its funding to help Kenya combat other health problems, including tuberculosis, malaria, reproductive health, and others.

The executive director of a nonprofit that provides HIV treatment to developing countries, Health GAP, Asia Russell, called the order “cruel and deadly.” She further cautioned that “it will kill people.” 

Kenya’s principal secretary for foreign affairs, Korir Sing’Oei, warned that the pause in aid would “unfortunately impair the ability of many African countries to meet health and other targets” including their “sustainable development goals.” He, too, though, suggested that African states “must rise up to the challenge and seize the opportunity to wean themselves from external dependency.” 

Although the aid pause initially only excluded emergency food programs and military aid to Israel and Egypt, Secretary of State Rubio on Tuesday agreed to exempt from the funding freeze “life-saving humanitarian assistance.” Such aid programs include “core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs necessary to deliver such assistance.”