Americans Divided on Federal Mass Cuts

It’s been one month since U.S. President Donald Trump entered the White House and a lot has changed. In his first few weeks, the head of state wasted no time before withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement (again), pardoning roughly 1,500 people charged in the January 6 Capitol riots, hitting China with new tariffs, promising “mass deportations”, reiterating his desire to buy Greenland and moving to dismantle the United State's main foreign-aid agency, USAID. In terms of domestic policy, Trump has also proceeded to gut the federal workforce with mass firings.

The following chart shows how opinions vary greatly across the aisle on the question of which federal departments and agencies should be reduced or eliminated. According to a survey conducted by YouGov and the Economist between February 16 and 18, Americans are most at odds over the dismantling of USAID, while they tend to agree over keeping the DoD as it is. Republicans were generally more in favor of cuts, while Democrats had a far greater issue with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk

Immediately after taking office, Trump announced a 90-day freeze on all U.S. foreign assistance, including for USAID projects, and on January 31, DOGE shuttered the agency’s Washington site. The cuts are putting millions of lives in danger, threatening programs in 50 countries around the world which include work combating AIDS, malaria and maternal deaths. The Trump administration has said it wants to align spending with the “America First” approach and says it is planning on merging the overseas aid agency with the U.S. Department of State.