Section 3 - Version 1.0 LOCKED

International Assistance

Aggregate foreign-assistance obligations and disbursements with unresolved capture share.

Audit contents — Section 3

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Structured Verification

Trace this section from the data model.

Summary: Aggregate foreign-assistance obligations and disbursements with unresolved capture share.

Claims: 1

Claim links: C-003

Sources
S-001 S-005 S-038 S-039 S-040 S-042 S-043

Decisions
D-013 D-014 D-017

Open Questions
A-001 A-002 A-003 A-004 A-005

Related Sections
Section 1 Section 4 Section 5 Section 6 Section 14

Claims In This Section

Reviewers should be able to move from section to claim without leaving the generated evidence path.

C-003

International assistance obligations and disbursements are not interchangeable

Section 3 preserves separate accounting states while carrying the unresolved beneficiary-capture share as an open question.

Sources
S-001 S-038 S-039 S-040 S-042 S-043

Scope

This section covers international assistance: federal resources whose policy objective is delivery of economic, humanitarian, development, security, or related assistance outside the United States. It is organized by budget function 150 plus assistance-bearing accounts outside function 150. The unit of account is gross federal outlays for Total A; value reaching non-U.S. recipients, Total B, is computed separately where possible.

Universe of programs

The section inventories development assistance, Economic Support Fund, Global Health Programs, International Disaster Assistance, Migration and Refugee Assistance, Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance, food-aid programs, MCC, multilateral development bank contributions, selected security assistance, and other international-assistance accounts. Embassy operations, Export-Import Bank activity, certain IMF asset exchanges, domestic refugee resettlement, and direct commercial arms sales are excluded or routed elsewhere to prevent double counting.

Top-line evidence

The primary source of record is ForeignAssistance.gov financial datasets and the State/USAID foreign assistance budget data published under the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2016.

Fiscal year	Measure	Figure	Source
FY2023	Obligations, all sources	≈ $99.9B	S-038
FY2023	Disbursements, all agencies	≈ $71.9B	S-038 / S-039
FY2024	Obligations, all sources	≈ $85.8B	S-038 / S-040
FY2025	Obligations reported to date	≈ $46.1B	S-038 / S-040
FY2026	Obligations reported to date	≈ $4.31B	S-038 / S-040

Release 0.3 figure metadata

R03-F03 — International-assistance top-line evidence

mechanical

Figure type: Evidence rows
Fiscal / accounting basis: Component-specific; no combined basis
Confidence: Row-specific; no combined rating
Primary source IDs: S-038
Contextual source IDs: S-039, S-040

Limitations

Fiscal years and number types are not additive

International-assistance top-line evidence component metadata
Component	Fiscal / accounting basis	Source IDs	Confidence	Limitation
FY2023 disbursement	FY2023 disbursement	S-038	Medium-High	—
FY2023 obligation	FY2023 obligation	S-038	Medium-High	—
FY2024 obligation	FY2024 obligation	S-038	Medium-High	—

Reading rule:

Obligations and disbursements are different stages, not contradictions. FY2023 shows approximately $99.9B obligated versus approximately $71.9B disbursed. The measures are never mixed.

Composition and scope guards

FY2023 disbursements include USAID at approximately $43.8B and State at approximately $21.3B, with Treasury, HHS, MCC, and others making up the rest. The approximately $8.2B military-aid designation inside ForeignAssistance.gov is taxpayer grant-aid designation, not total U.S. military involvement with foreign governments. ForeignAssistance.gov excludes most arms and equipment transfers, which are handled in Section 5. Direct commercial sales are excluded because foreign governments use their own money, not U.S. taxpayer funds.

Money flow maps

The section maps DA/ESF, Global Health/PEPFAR, Food for Peace, FMF, multilateral development bank contributions, and MCC. These maps distinguish congressional appropriations, agencies, implementers, foreign recipients, and U.S.-capture points such as U.S. contractors, U.S. farmers, U.S.-flag shipping, and U.S. defense industry.

Double-count risk register

Major double-count risks include drawdowns versus replacement appropriations, food commodities across accounts, State versus DoD security assistance, global health dollars across agencies, overseas MRA versus domestic resettlement, obligations versus disbursements, and supplementals versus base funding. Resolution rules require counting each taxpayer dollar once and keeping measures separate.

Running totals

Total A contribution: international-assistance obligations of approximately $99.9B in FY2023; disbursements of approximately $71.9B in FY2023; and obligations of approximately $85.8B in FY2024. Total B is not yet calculable because the U.S.-capture share is unpublished (A-005). Qualitatively, Total B is materially below Total A.

Known facts and unknown facts

Known: FY2023 obligations, FY2023 disbursements, FY2024 obligations, FY2023 military-aid designation, Ukraine direct budget support, ForeignAssistance.gov exclusion of most arms transfers, and exclusion of direct commercial sales as non-taxpayer.

Unknown: per-account verified figures pending primary pulls, U.S.-capture share by program, FY2025-26 actuals, and recipient-nationality split within multilateral contributions.

Plain English Bottom Line

The trustworthy headline is that the United States obligated about $99.9B in foreign aid in FY2023 and about $85.8B in FY2024, and paid out about $71.9B in FY2023. Those figures are aimed overseas by purpose, but some value is captured by U.S. entities, and most military equipment transfers sit outside the Section 3 aggregate.