Patients and health care advocates said the abrupt decision to halt U.S. funding for a lifesaving H.I.V. program led to widespread confusion. The backtracking didn’t help.

The Trump administration has ordered a three-month pause on almost all foreign development assistance pending a review to see what fits in with the president's "America First" policy. Aid groups and human rights watchdogs warn that the freeze will put countless lives around the world at risk.

International aid groups warned that the Trump administration’s “stop work order” on foreign assistance risks both lives and American influence across Africa, where US aid funds everything from military exercises to local hospitals.

Why are you crying? It's not your government. It's not your country. He has no reason to give you anything,' Mr. Kenyatta says.

The 90-day suspension of US aid and “stop-work” requirement following the president’s executive order last week has exposed with lightning-like intensity the global reach of US assistance, whose diverse projects worldwide have been an essential part of American soft power.