U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The administration of US President Donald Trump is moving to slash funding for diplomatic and aid programs, which experts say could undercut the ability of the United States and partner governments to monitor and tackle organized crime in Latin America and beyond.
The latest measures, which require approval from Congress, would cut 15% from the State Department budget, close bureaus and offices around the world, and reorganize the remaining functions of the US government’s diplomatic force.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio claimed in a post on Substack that the downsizing is needed because parts of his department had become a “platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas” and had helped “facilitate mass migration around the world.”
The planned changes come on the back of the near total abolition of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which had funded security initiatives throughout Latin America that aimed at improving the conditions that pushed citizens into organized crime, or prompted them to migrate to the United States, including financing to expand and improve the capacity of local law enforcement, and reduce corruption.
InSight Crime picked three countries impacted by the cuts and spoke to experts to learn more about what the end of projects could mean for citizen security and organized crime.
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Funding the Fight Against Gangs in Haiti
Haiti was the largest recipient of US funds in Latin America in 2024, with most projects aimed at providing emergency humanitarian assistance to communities affected by an explosion in gang violence. The country received over $466 million in US foreign assistance, about 89% of which was administered by USAID.
US financial support has been crucial to sustaining Haiti’s threadbare police force and a UN-backed security mission deployed to help domestic authorities combat the country’s criminal groups.
Between 2021 and 2024, the State Department contributed at least $189 million to help professionalize the Haitian police. The US had also pledged at least $380 million to support the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS), with the funds mostly managed through the State Department and Department of Defense.
There is now, however, uncertainty surrounding the future of US security support. Earlier this year, the Trump administration froze more than $13 million in funds destined for the MSS as part of a 90-day pause on foreign aid.
On April 21, the US Ambassador to the United Nations urged other countries to “contribute their fair share” to the MSS, saying “America cannot continue shouldering such a significant financial burden.”
While the bulk of US security funding in Haiti remains unfrozen, both US and international contributions have, so far, not equipped the Haitian police or the MSS with sufficient resources to take on the well-armed criminal groups, and both remain hamstrung by shortages in equipment and staff.
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Supporting Sustainable Peace in Colombia
Colombia is also a large recipient of US support, much of which is aimed at supporting implementation of a 2016 peace deal that demobilized the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC).
Since 2018, the US has provided 42% of foreign financing for peace implementation. In 2024, total US foreign assistance to Colombia amounted to $451 million.
The projects supported by US funds included crop substitution programs for rural coca farmers, programs to help reintegrate former combatants, and initiatives to provide opportunities for young people at risk of being recruited by criminal groups.
The Trump administration has canceled all but seven of the 80 programs supported by USAID in recent years in Colombia
The production of coca used to make cocaine has spiked in the last few years – and cocaine continues to be a motor for violence in the country, where criminal groups clash for control of strategic territories.
Cutting funding for development and peace initiatives, at a time when Colombia’s own defense budget faces shortfalls, creates an opportunity for organized crime to spread, researcher and advocate Laura Bonilla of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Fundación Paz y Reconciliación – PARES) told InSight Crime.
“If you don’t go in with the tools or the social support of the state, you end up leaving a space that is filled by the illicit economy,” Bonilla said.
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Finding the Disappeared in Mexico
The Trump administration has frequently signaled that fighting criminal groups in Mexico is a top priority for the US government. On the first day of his current term, Trump signed an executive order that led to the designation of several Mexican criminal groups as terrorist organizations.
More recently, US officials have even voiced the idea of using drones to bomb criminal groups in Mexico.
But while the administration talks up the use of US military might to fight crime abroad, it has quietly removed support for programs that had aimed at increasing the capacity of Mexican law enforcement to address the root causes of criminal activity.
For example, before the dismantling of USAID, the agency had funded forensic technical assistance to Mexican police forces in five states with the highest numbers of clandestine graves with the aim of increasing the identification of disappeared people.
It also funded equipment for Mexico’s Regional Center for Human Identification (Centro Regional de Identificación Humana – CRIH) to help the organization scale up its ability to identify human remains.
“The reduction in support lessens the pressure on the Mexican government to do more to address this disappearance crisis,” Maureen Meyer, a US-Mexico security expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, told InSight Crime.
“Weakening forensic efforts in Mexico will reduce the number of investigations into these crimes.” “This is not just a Mexico issue, US citizens have also disappeared,” Meyer added.
