President Donald Trump's move to cut most of the US funding towards foreign humanitarian aid could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal, BBC reported.

A third of those at risk of premature deaths were children, researchers projected.

Low- and middle-income countries were facing a shock "comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict," said Davide Rasella, who co-authored the report.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in March that over 80% of all programmes at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had been cancelled. The Trump administration has taken aim at what it sees as wasteful spending, according to BBC.