Trump global aid cuts risk 14 million deaths in five years, report says

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11. Ending all foreign aid has been a long simmering goal of all sorts of isolationists.

Project 2025 had the more modest goal of eliminating foreign aid that didn't serve a conservative purpose.

A common statement among opponents of foreign aid is "why are we giving money to THEM when we have people that need it here?". Trump's "America First" political identity draws in these kinds of people. So it's not a surprise that Trump would want to do this, even if it's a surprise that he did. It seems to be a very disputable interpretation of Congressional spending law so it makes sense that it seemed to come out of nowhere but it was definitely there as a sentiment.

I think a lot of people, when posing the above rhetorical question, could be convinced that foreign aid is good and should continue. It's a lot harder to sell when they only hear arguments about why foreign aid is bad or that the purpose of foreign aid is to create closer ties with America (which is true) but without talking about how those closer ties come from improving the lives of people in those countries.