Countries That Receive the Most Foreign Aid from the U.S.
images (71).jpeg
The United States provides billions of dollars in foreign aid to other countries each year.
U.S. airmen use a forklift to move supplies destined for Ukraine, April 29, 2022, at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
The United States spent less on foreign aid in 2023 than the year before — but it also allocated more money, adjusted for inflation, than at any time since the 1950s, according to data compiled by the federal government. The high price tag for 2023, the most recent year for which complete data is available, is largely due to continued financial support from Israel and Ukraine.
The total for 2023 was about $68 billion, down from a postwar record of more than $76 billion last year, according to data from a federal tracking tool. This recent increase is not the result of a slow recovery, nor is it due to inflation. Spending increased by more than 35% between 2021 and 2022, led by increased aid to Ukraine. There are only three years in which the United States has spent even close to that amount in foreign aid: 1947, 1949, and 1951, when the global landscape was very different after World War II and the creation of the United Nations.
But as President Donald Trump enters his second term, the future of U.S. foreign funding is unclear. Trump issued an executive order in January 2025 directing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to suspend all foreign aid payments, pending a review to ensure they are "effective and consistent with U.S. policy under the America First program." The order sent "chills down the throats of officials," CNN reported, because it would freeze billions of dollars in funding, including humanitarian aid from the United States, the world's largest humanitarian donor. The order provides exceptions for emergency food aid programs and military funding for Israel and Egypt.
In 2023, Ukraine, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt topped the list of nearly 180 countries receiving funds from the United States.
What is foreign aid? A website run by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, ForeignAssistance.gov, lists international assistance from more than 20 U.S. government agencies. The site defines foreign aid as "activities funded from appropriations accounts available for assistance to foreign countries, international organizations, and other foreign entities, which may include funds, property, services, and technical assistance."
A key point made elsewhere: the tracker figures do not reflect everything that could be considered foreign aid, including the significant amounts of funding for Ukraine provided through mechanisms such as Ukrainian security assistance.
U.S. foreign aid commitments on the federal tracker include both economic support—which includes humanitarian spending—and military support. The assistance can range from counterterrorism initiatives funded by the State Department to HIV/AIDS programs funded by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The latest tracker data shows that the share of U.S. military aid has fallen from 23% in 2020 to just 12% in 2023, the lowest percentage since 1949. Before 2021, military spending for decades accounted for at least 20% of foreign aid obligations. In contrast, the weight of aid in the form of economic assistance has been greater in recent years than in decades, accounting for about 88% of the liabilities listed in 2023.
What assistance does the United States offer to Israel? In 2023, U.S. agencies allocated about $3.3 billion in aid to Israel, almost all of which went to military aid. The country received a similar amount in 2022.
Over the past decade, Israel has typically received between 8 and 10 percent of all country-specific foreign aid obligations each year, but that share has fallen to about 5 percent by 2023, while Ukraine continues to receive the lion's share.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza account for about $294 million in foreign aid obligations in 2023, up from $160 million in 2022.
What assistance is the U.S. offering to Ukraine? In 2023, Ukraine received about $17 billion, more than a quarter of all aid earmarked for specific countries, the data show. Ukraine surpassed Israel for the first time as the top recipient of U.S. aid in 2022, after Russia began its invasion in February of that year. In 2021, before Russia's invasion, Ukraine was not among the top 20 recipients of U.S. foreign aid, ranking 21st with about $597 million in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Aid payments are made for a specific purpose. The money can be spent on humanitarian aid, healthcare, infrastructure, education, military aid and more. Countries involved in ongoing conflicts typically receive a large amount of military aid, while countries facing humanitarian crises may receive assistance in this area — whether in health or infrastructure.
The federal tracking site notes, among other things, that foreign aid bonds can be distributed immediately or at a later date, but the funds must be available before a bond is issued.
Which country spends the most on foreign aid?
Several countries, including the United States, are members of the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which means they provide "official development assistance" to developing countries. Although the United States is the OECD's largest donor of development assistance worldwide in terms of dollar amounts, it is surpassed when this aid is measured as a percentage of gross national income (GNI), which measures a country's gross domestic product minus the income it receives from its businesses or citizens abroad. Thanks to this measure, Norway spent 1.1% of its GNI and stood out in 2023, followed by Luxembourg (1%), Sweden (0.9%), Germany (0.8%) and Denmark (0.7%). The United States dedicated 0.24% of its GNI to official development assistance, ranking 26th in the ranking.
Countries receiving the most foreign aid from the United States in 2023:
Screenshot_20250130-061820.png
Ukraine ($17.2 billion) Israel ($3.3 billion) Jordan ($1.7 billion) Egypt ($1.5 billion) Ethiopia ($1.5 billion) Somalia ($1.2 billion) Nigeria ($1 billion) Congo (Kinshasa) ($990 million) Afghanistan ($886.5 million) Kenya ($846 Countries receiving the least foreign aid from the United States in 2023: Curacao ($3,000) Portugal ($6,500) Kuwait ($73,000) ($80,000) Dominica ($80,00) $93,000) Russia ($108,000) Spain ($133,000) Netherlands ($144,000) Singapore ($304,000) Most Aid Killed in 2024 than in any other year, says Fatima Shbair's report for the United States Spending Too Much, according to opinion polls, most Americans believe the portion of the federal budget devoted to foreign aid is too large. A previous Kaiser Family Foundation study found that respondents estimated that foreign aid accounts for an average of 26 percent of the federal budget. In reality, foreign aid generally accounts for less than 1 percent of the trillions of dollars spent by the federal government. However, the United States has historically given more money in foreign aid in total dollars than any other country in the world, distributing more than $640 billion worldwide between 2012 and 2022. To put the $68 billion for 2023 in context, if all foreign aid were distributed through a single U.S. government agency, that agency would have spent more than the Department of Labor ($54 billion), but far less than the Department of Homeland Security ($123 billion) in fiscal year 2023.
[attachment deleted by admin]