The Trump administration is launching an unprecedented, $11 billion soft-power effort to remake foreign health assistance after its controversial decision to gut USAID.

Why it matters: Called the America First Global Health Strategy, the program aims to boost U.S. influence and interests in developing nations —especially those in Africa — while bypassing non-government organizations (NGOs) that delivered services through USAID.

• The program would send billions of dollars directly to needy foreign governments, health care organizations and drug manufacturers over the next five years — a plan that critics worry could be a recipe for corruption and "catastrophic" failures.

Zoom in: So far, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signed 15 agreements with African countries aimed at improving their health systems with an emphasis on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and maternal health.

• The U.S. has committed $11.1 billion over five years to the countries, which have pledged $12.2 billion in matching funds and promised to meet performance goals.
• The State Department aims to have agreements with 50 countries in a few months.

Zoom out: The initiative is the administration's answer to critics who accused Trump of deadly, dangerous and self-defeating isolationism when the administration scuttled USAID at the start of his second term.

• Rubio said the system replaces the "NGO industrial complex" that siphoned 70% of U.S. money to middlemen and bureaucrats based in the D.C. area. Former USAID officials dispute that characterization.
• "They built parallel health care, flying a bunch of American workers out there to treat people," said Jeremy P. Lewin, undersecretary of state for foreign assistance.
• "Yes, you made progress, but it stalled and you never built durability or self-reliance in these African governments because they had this parallel system."

Between the lines: Adopting a criticism from the left, Lewin said USAID fostered a "neo-colonial mindset" of "The white man has to do it." The new plan will do more to help developing nations build their health care capacity, Lewin said.

• "We're going to give you access to innovative American drugs. We're going to give you access to commodities, antiretroviral drugs, diagnostic kits [and] malaria nets at scale through pool procurement," he said.
• Lewin said third-party auditors will track data and money to spot and eliminate fraud and waste.

The other side: Former USAID officials and global health specialists, however, say the administration's new system will be crippled by graft on the ground and inaccurate data collection.

• "The capacity is not there, and the level of corruption is so high that money is going to disappear," said Andrew Natsios, a Republican who led USAID under President George W. Bush.
• Natsios sneered at Lewin's use of the term "neo-colonialism," saying many countries don't know how to prevent "catastrophic failure."
• "I suggest that this 'neo-colonial' model is the only one that is acceptable to the U.S. Congress" and inspectors' general tracking federal payments, he said.

Since Trump began dismantling USAID, foreign aid specialists have made dire predictions about the impact. One epidemiologist estimated that up to 750,000 people have died because aid was shut off, a figure the State Department disputes.

• Atul Gawande, former USAID assistant administrator under President Biden, detailed the problems in November in a New Yorker piece and documentary that focused on Kenya.

The following month, Rubio announced a health agreement with Kenyan President William Ruto, who praised the initiative.

• Cameroon, Eswatini, Lesotho, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi and Côte d'Ivoire also have signed aid agreements with the U.S.
• Panama, the first non-African nation to be involved, will join later this week.

The big picture: Trump's "America First" mantra means just that. So the aid packages have U.S. strategic and business interests in mind.

• In Zambia, the U.S. ambassador last month linked a pending health care agreement with U.S. access to mining opportunities.
• U.S.-based ExxonMobil has one of the largest liquefied natural gas facilities in Mozambique. It's among the world's poorest countries and has one of the globe's highest HIV/AIDS rates: 11.5% of people aged 15-49.
• Rwanda's deal was hammered out amid talks over access to critical minerals. The agreement helps the country expand its use of medicine-carrying drones from the American company Zipline.

To try to block the spread of HIV, Gilead Pharmaceuticals has agreed to provide its injectable preventative drug lenacapavir through the program.

• The U.S. government also is paying for Starlink, the satellite-based internet company owned by Elon Musk, to help connect health clinics to the web.
• Lewin said the free wifi draws people to the clinics, where they get care at the same time.

President Trump is reaching deeper than ever into the gears of the U.S. economy, attempting to harness state power to directly shape prices, markets, interest rates and corporate behavior.

Why it matters: The Trump administration's economic interventions — including its extraordinary criminal probe of the Federal Reserve — go far beyond typical electioneering.

• Trump is trying to reverse his sagging approval ratings by brute force, leaning on populist instincts to deliver visible cost relief before November.
• The result: institutional stability and capitalist norms — like so much else in the Trump era — are increasingly subordinate to raw presidential power.

Zoom in: Trump has denied knowledge of the Justice Department's criminal inquiry into Fed chair Jerome Powell, which is nominally focused on cost overruns from the central bank's renovation of its D.C. headquarters.

• But Powell and his predecessors see the probe as the culmination of a months-long White House pressure campaign against the Fed, which has resisted cutting interest rates as fast as Trump wants.
• "That jerk will be gone soon," Trump said of Powell during an economic speech in Detroit Tuesday.

The big picture: In the first 13 days of 2026, Trump has targeted the biggest drivers of voters' cost-of-living anxiety with direct, highly visible interventions outside the normal policy-making process.

• Energy costs: Trump has openly acknowledged that Venezuela's vast oil reserves factored into his decision to capture its leader, Nicolás Maduro. He urged Big Oil executives to invest $100 billion to revive Venezuela's decrepit infrastructure — then threatened to shut Exxon out of the effort after its CEO called the country "uninvestable."
• Housing costs: Trump ordered a $200 billion purchase of mortgage-backed securities in a highly unusual effort to lower mortgage rates. He also proposed a ban on "large institutional investors" from buying single-family homes, seeking to force down prices by squeezing corporate players out of the housing market.
• Consumer debt: Trump called for capping credit card interest rates at 10% for at least a year — an intervention into consumer lending aimed at delivering immediate relief to borrowers. Banks and lenders warned the move could restrict access to credit, especially for riskier consumers.

Between the lines: Individual stocks have gotten hammered by Trump's recent intercessions, but the broader market has largely learned to discount the chaos.

• That muscle memory traces back to the "TACO trade" ("Trump Always Chickens Out") — Wall Street shorthand for investors buying the dip on Trump's tariff threats on the assumption he'd eventually back off.
• Many of these policies also lack the durability of a legislative solution, relying instead on executive orders or thundering pronouncements on Truth Social.

Still, the escalation — particularly the unprecedented steps to erode the Fed's independence — has contributed to a trend of bond yields rising, the dollar slipping and investors flocking to gold.

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent privately warned Trump on Sunday that the Powell investigation "made a mess" and could be bad for financial markets, as Axios first reported.
• Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a key member of the Senate Banking Committee, vowed to block any action on Powell's replacement. Several other Republicans in Congress also raised alarms.

What they're saying: "President Trump was given a resounding mandate by the American people to smash Washington, D.C.'s obsession with consensus orthodoxy that has let Americans down," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.

• "The Trump administration is turning the page on Joe Biden's economic disaster by implementing traditional free market policies that do work – like deregulation and tax cuts – while rectifying the America Last policies that have Americans behind."

The bottom line: The economy's "invisible hand" is giving way to a clenched presidential fist.

Chuck Schumer used the threat of two more Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices to bait top Democrats into running for Senate in 2026, the party leader told Axios in an exclusive interview.

Why it matters: Schumer, 75, is up for re-election in 2028 and his longevity as party leader is at stake. But the New York Democrat got his handpicked candidate in all four states where he'll need to flip GOP-held seats.

"North Carolina, Maine, Ohio and Alaska ... those four, we're going to win," Schumer told Axios in an interview Tuesday at Senate Democrats' campaign headquarters in D.C.

• Schumer and Democrats will need to flip at least four GOP-held seats to reclaim a majority.
• They'll also need to protect Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) in Georgia — where Schumer predicted his party will win — and prevent Republicans from flipping an open seat in Michigan, where the primary has turned ugly.

The big picture: Schumer's key recruiting victories include former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-Alaska).

• "If we lose the Senate by one seat, and Trump puts two 40-year-olds on the Supreme Court ... you won't be happy," Schumer told Axios about his pitch to those candidates. "It was patriotism that motivated these people."
• Trump would need just a majority of votes in the Senate to confirm a Supreme Court justice. A Democratic majority would act as a check to that.

On possible impeachment, Schumer said: "Let's beat Trump ... then we can talk about other things."

• Democrats are already gaming out impeachments of multiple top Trump officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, after an ICE agent fatally shot a 37-year-old woman last week in Minneapolis.
• Schumer said Trump would "have no choice" but to work with Democrats if they're in the majority. He pointed to their ability to pass pandemic relief legislation toward the end of Trump's first term.

Between the lines: Schumer is facing a primary headache in Maine, where progressive Graham Platner is challenging Mills for the Democratic nomination.

• Asked if he'd back Platner if Mills lost, Schumer said: "I'm not getting into specifics here, but we're going to do what it takes to win in every state."
• "Our North Star is winning back the Senate, and we have different approaches in different states," Schumer said.

Zoom out: As anti-ICE fury burns through the Democratic party, which echoes the "abolish ICE" movement of the first Trump term, Schumer said: "ICE is a menace and is disrupting life in the cities."

• "A candidate has to do what they're comfortable with in their own states," Schumer said. "And different candidates have different things."

Wall Street strategists busted into 2026 overwhelmingly bullish, with one big caveat: AI had to deliver measurable returns this year.

Why it matters: Two weeks in, investors are getting their wish, as Alphabet is lending its AI horsepower to several companies, while much of its risk is in the rearview.

What they're saying: Having real world, tangible applications for AI is a "very big deal," Trevor Slaven, global head of asset allocation at Barings, told Axios.

• Slaven thinks the market could rally significantly (again) this year, but there will be volatility along the way.
• Continued questions about an AI bubble could weigh on the tech sector, and mixed policy from Washington could cause broader volatility even if stocks continue to grind higher.

State of play: Alphabet's market cap hit $4 trillion Monday after two major partnerships were announced.

• Apple confirmed it would use Alphabet's large language model, Gemini, to run Siri, and Walmart will use Gemini as part of an AI-powered shopping effort.

Flashback: Alphabet's stock was under pressure throughout early 2025 as investors worried about headwinds ranging from an antitrust case to fierce competition from OpenAI and Anthropic.

• The company's market cap rose by over $230 billion after avoiding a DOJ breakup.
• Since last fall, investors have become more discerning about the winners and losers of the AI buildout, rewarding companies practicing responsible spending that can lead to measurable returns.
• That sentiment shift helped Alphabet become the top-performing Big Tech stock of the year.

Between the lines: Alphabet is showing investors the kind of real-world, measurable AI-application-goodness Wall Street wanted to see this year.

• It's not just about companies using AI for new products that could drive revenue, but also to cut costs.
• Walmart's plan to expand AI-powered drone delivery "sounds like some cost cutting," Slaven said.
• Companies that can use AI to create tangible returns or to cut costs could be set for rewards from shareholders this year.

Yes, but: AI-adoption allowing for fewer workers seems a "questionable" reason to be bullish, Bob Elliott, chief investment officer at Unlimited Funds told Axios.

• The question that every AI interview I have with investors these days seems to end with: Will AI create new jobs, or take them all away?
• If AI can replace workers, that's good for investors, who benefit from expanded profit margins and earnings growth, but potentially bad for the economy, if fewer people are working, earning and spending.

What we're watching: How the AI-economy plays out this year.

• Investors are happy to hold off on their existential AI questions as long as earnings can expand throughout 2026.

The bottom line: There's an underlying acknowledgment from Wall Street that the AI rally is looking bubbly, Jennifer Bender, global chief investment strategist at Jane Street told Axios.

• But Wall Street doesn't want to hop off the AI train too early, especially right as companies are adopting the technology, potentially boosting their earnings, and profits for investors.