From USAID to U.S. Aid: Do the capital letters make a difference

For her project, Anna Liston exmained the history and impacts of USAID. Following the Marshall Plan of the 1940s and 50s, President John F. Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 into law, establishing the United States Agency for International Development (USAID or AID) (Office of the Historian, n.d.). On January 20, 2025, under Executive Order 14169, titled "Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid," the Trump administration canceled 83% of USAID-managed foreign aid programs, transferring the remainder to the Department of State (McCabe, 2025). Despite the programmatic shrinking, the policy of providing aid remains an integral part of American diplomacy.