A 3% Global Wealth Tax Could Avert 30 Million Deaths by 2030

The analysis comes as global aid programs face a severe fiscal crisis. Official development assistance plummeted by 23% in 2025 compared to the previous year, with the United States accounting for three-quarters of that decline. Much of this retreat stems from the 2025 dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Trump administration, a move led by billionaire Elon Musk. Researchers estimate that the agency's elimination alone could result in 14 million additional deaths by the end of the decade.

Lucio Exposito, a senior economist and researcher at the ICESI School of Economics, points to a widening chasm in global resources as the primary driver for a new tax strategy. While donor nations increasingly pivot toward military expenditures, the top 0.002% of the global population now controls $37.1 trillion in wealth—an amount exceeding the entire GDP of the United States. Exposito argues that taxing these concentrated fortunes is the most plausible method to stabilize humanitarian assistance programs that are currently failing to meet basic survival needs in the Global South.