Legislative Decisions that Shaped Global Nutrition and Trade Relationships in 2025

Advocating for Vital Funding for the Most Vulnerable

During 2025, Bread members worked steadily to defend funding for international humanitarian and development assistance, all of which is important to Bread’s Nourish Our Future campaign, launched in February 2025. This campaign, and Bread’s commitment to ending hunger and malnutrition globally for children and communities, has and will continue to fuel our advocacy and policy work into the future. 

As Bread has emphasized, the “1,000 Days” period between pregnancy and a child’s second birthday is the most important human nutrition window. In hunger emergencies, which are a stubborn reality today, the lives of babies and toddlers are at highest risk because they must have the right nutrients at the right time to thrive. Often, their immature immune systems cannot fend off childhood diseases that are rarely life-threatening among healthy children. Those who survive early childhood malnutrition are likely to be affected by stunting—permanent lifelong damage to a person’s health and development. 

The reality of how vulnerable children are to hunger and malnutrition, and the crucial role the U.S. government plays in preventing this, was front and center in 2025. This year, the incoming Trump administration abruptly “paused” and then cancelled many vital humanitarian and development programs that prevent malnutrition and promote global health. Nearly all staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were fired, consistent with the President’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid. For over 70 years, the United States was a global leader in providing emergency assistance to families whose means of earning a living have been destroyed by natural disaster or armed conflict. U.S. assistance saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of children every year. By August 2025, the agency was shuttered.

In July, Congress passed a rescissions package that scaled back funding appropriated in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 and made the cuts to USAID permanent. Some program funds, though, were not scaled back through this rescissions process. The bipartisan President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which provides lifesaving medicine and nutrition to people living with HIV/AIDS, continues to operate and is funded. Funding for the McGovern-Dole Food for Education Program and Food for Peace (FFP) was also kept intact. Bread will continue to advocate for these programs, and more, in the coming year. 

The Impact of Aid Cuts is Already Being Felt

The New Yorker magazine reported on November 5, 2025, that the closing of USAID and its lifesaving programs has already led to more than 600,000 deaths, two-thirds of them children. The short documentary Rovina’s Choice tells the story of one woman trying unsuccessfully to save her daughter’s life when food shipments failed to arrive.

On September 30, 2025, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, also known as AGOA, expired due to Congress’s failure to reauthorize this important trade legislation. AGOA allowed tariff-free access for qualifying items exported to the United States from eligible African countries. The initiative, which eliminated tariff barriers for some African exports, was deemed at odds with the President’s current efforts to raise tariffs. The lapse in AGOA’s authorization has caused uncertainty across African markets, especially for farmers and manufacturers. On December 11th, the House Ways and Means Committee overwhelmingly passed the AGOA Extension Act, which paves the way for Congress to extend AGOA by three years until December 31, 2028. This is an encouraging first step, but it still faces a long road ahead before being signed into law.

Tariffs Hit Home for U.S. Households and Farmers

The Trump administration’s historic tariff increases on U.S. imports from countries around the world could also impact food security in the United States. Because the U.S. imports many of the food items it consumes, the tariffs are widely expected to raise food prices for U.S. households. Although the tariffs on goods from various countries has shifted throughout the year, the Supreme Court is currently weighing the legality of these actions. Yale University’s Budget Lab projected that the most recent tariffs will increase the number of Americans living in poverty, between 650,000 and 875,000. 

U.S. farmers have also had their profits squeezed by a combination of new U.S. tariffs on imported fertilizers and other inputs, agricultural labor shortages, increased storage costs, and trade wars with countries the U.S. traditionally exports to, particularly China.

Going into the new year, Bread and its members will continue to point out the grave consequences of cutting humanitarian programs that save lives and urge U.S. lawmakers to do all they can to end hunger around the globe. 

Michele Learner is Managing Editor of Bread for the World’s Policy and Research Institute.

Rick Rowden is a Senior International Policy Advisor at Bread for the World’s Policy and Research Institute.