Evangelical leaders call on Trump to rethink 'hastily pursued' USAID cuts

• Evangelical leaders are pushing back on President Donald Trump's cuts to foreign aid.
• Trump and Elon Musk have targeted USAID in their sweeping cost-cutting efforts.
• Some of the actions have been "damaging and wasteful," a leader of an evangelical organization said.

"Let's bring God back into our lives," President Donald Trump said Thursday morning.

While most evangelical leaders would agree with the spirit of Trump's comments at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, some have begun to push back on his recent executive actions.

At a press panel following the event, a group of faith leaders, including members of the evangelical community that has long been a base of support for Trump, said they were concerned about the president's recent moves to dismantle the US Agency for International Development as part of his cost-cutting efforts.

"We affirm that there are aspects of our foreign aid programs that should be ended and others that could be reformed for greater effectiveness," Galen Carey, the vice president of government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals, said. "However, this review and reform can be achieved without the wholesale disruption of the many programs that are working well and saving lives."

Founded in 1942, the National Association of Evangelicals represents millions of people from over 40 denominations. As a nonpolitical religious group, it participates in advocacy work but does not endorse politicians.

"We affirm the goal of eliminating wasteful spending throughout government but caution against hastily pursued measures that will prove costly. The abrupt closure of many effective aid programs will mean that some of the money already spent will have been wasted," Carey said. "Commodities will be lost and food will rot, medicines expire. Other supplies may be stolen or misappropriated because the staff and the partners are not allowed to receive them."

Trump campaigned on the promise to reduce government spending and has appointed Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency to spearhead changes that they say could save the government as much as $2 trillion.

Musk has highlighted departments, agencies, and expenses that he says are a "crazy waste" of taxpayer dollars.

While legal experts told Business Insider that some of the cuts may not be lawful and some of Trump's executive orders have been shut down by the courts, many of the changes have left some nongovernment organizations that rely on federal aid reeling.

Emily Chambers Sharpe, the director of Health and Nutrition at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization, said the "stop-work orders have made things really challenging for us in the last few weeks."

Carey said there is an "urgent need" for clarity around the announcements.

"Indiscriminate stop-work orders issued with little or no advanced notice have created chaos and confusion on the ground. This is damaging and wasteful," Carey said. "Some of our members and partners are experiencing crippling cashflow crises, necessitating mass layoffs and abrupt termination of services with no time for responsible transitions."

Gabriel Salguero, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition president, said he has seen how US foreign aid saves lives.

"The President just finished saying he wants to be known as a peacemaker and as a person who builds bridges, and we think that foreign aid and PEPFAR are two key instruments or two key tools to contribute to that legacy," he said, referring to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The long-running foreign aid program former President George W. Bush launched in 2003 is also on the chopping block.

Carey said the drastic actions may sour how other nations view the United States.

"Community relationships will suffer, and it'll be hard to rebuild organizations that are destroyed in this way. Much goodwill toward the US and gratitude for our assistance may be lost," he said. "We urge the administration to rethink the assumption that effective international assistance does not benefit our national security, peace and prosperity."