Cruelty is the worst of all human vices. The intentional infliction of pain upon others, when done at the individual level, is called murder, manslaughter, or assault and is illegal under domestic law. On a mass scale, when directed against an ethnic group, it is genocide under international law. Both are wrong and illegal.

The Trump administration and congressional decisions to cut USAID, as well as many domestic social welfare programs, will result in the injury, suffering, or  death of millions. This is policycide. It should be illegal.  Policycide is the policy choice to pass laws or enact programs that either intentionally or reasonably should be seen by government officials as harming people, even causing their deaths or serious bodily injury.

Let us consider some facts. According to the British medical journal The Lancet, a significant cut in USAID funding—such as that proposed by the Trump administration—could lead to millions of additional deaths, particularly among children under the age of five. The study estimates that more than 14 million preventable deaths could occur by 2030 if 83% of USAID programs are canceled. This includes over four and a half million deaths of children under five.

Domestically, there will be significant increases in deaths if the Medicaid cuts are implemented in 2025 as part of the so-called “big, beautiful bill.” Estimates vary, but some studies suggest over 16,000 additional deaths annually due to reduced access or patients forgoing care. This was the conclusion of a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine. The cuts would also lead to 7.5 million individuals losing insurance, effectively dismantling the progress  on coverage made under the Affordable Care Act.

Other estimates warn of thousands of additional deaths each year from the loss of drug subsidies tied to Medicaid coverage. Rural hospitals will close. Preventative medical care will be skipped because people cannot afford it. These consequences are not theoretical; they are real and looming.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that the cuts to USAID and those proposed in the “big, beautiful bill” lead to 14 to 15 million deaths by 2030. How does the Trump policycide stack up against other major catastrophes in recent history?

Under Stalin, at least 7 million died—some estimates go as high as 10 to 20 million. The Great Leap Forward under Mao caused 30 million starvation deaths in China between 1960 and 1962. The National World War II Museum in New Orleans estimates that 6 million European Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

These were among the greatest atrocities of the 20th century, and they rightly horrify us. But policycide does not always come wrapped in barbed wire or wearing uniforms. Sometimes, it arrives in budget bills, spreadsheets, and congressional roll calls.

The Trump cuts, if enacted, will mark one of the most lethal acts of public policy in modern American history. They target the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and children. They disproportionately affect people of color, immigrants, and rural Americans. And they do so with full knowledge of the consequences.

This is not an accident. It is rooted in an old American idea—that the poor are undeserving, lazy, and morally weak. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, this belief fueled the eugenics movement, forced sterilizations, and the separation of children from Indigenous families. Today’s budget cuts reflect a similar ideology cloaked in the language of fiscal responsibility.

Think of these cuts as 21st-century eugenics—not through biology, but through bureaucracy. These are deliberate efforts to remove the vulnerable from society—not by killing them directly, but by abandoning them to poverty, illness, and death. This is a war waged not with bombs, but with policy. It is economic violence masquerading as governance.

This is a choice. A moral and political decision made by Trump, his advisors, and those in Congress who support these measures. It is not negligence. It is intentional. It is the American genocide. It is policycide.

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