One China expert told Newsweek that the USAID funding freeze had handed an "enormous gift" to Beijing's push to influence the Global South. Meanwhile, one Kremlin propagandist has said on Russian television that Moscow could exploit the gap left by USAID and project geopolitical power with a similar program.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has been in the headlines following Texas billionaire Elon Musk's comments about the shutdown.

President Donald Trump and his team are having discussions about merging USAID into the State Department in order to significantly reduce the size of the agency's workforce for efficiency purposes, a senior White House official told Reuters on Monday.