Days after President Donald Trump issued a broad executive order on Monday to halt foreign aid for 90 days, the US State Department has halted almost all foreign aid globally, with immediate effect.
The action, which jeopardises billions of dollars in funding from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for projects around the world, was detailed in a cable issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to all US diplomatic postings on Friday, as CNN was able to view.
Although Trump administration officials and Republicans in Congress have been angry about foreign aid, the money makes up a very small portion of the US budget as a whole.
Officials from the State Department and humanitarian organisations are in shock about the executive order’s and the cable’s reach.
The cable halts new aid and demands urgent “stop work” orders on current foreign aid. Its scope is wide. Unless otherwise noted, it seems that almost all foreign aid has been targeted.
This implies that aid for development, military support, life-saving global health care, and even the distribution of clean water may be impacted.
Only emergency food aid and foreign military funding for Egypt and Israel are exempt from the cable’s requirements.
No other nations that receive foreign military funding, such as Taiwan or Ukraine, are mentioned in the message as being immune from the freeze.
According to the cable, the administration will create criteria for evaluating whether the help is “aligned with President Trump’s foreign policy agenda” within the next month.
According to the cable, “Decisions whether to continue, modify, or terminate programs will be made following this review,” which should be finished in 85 days.
“Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer?” Rubio stated in a public statement on Wednesday. Does it makes America stronger? Does it makes America more prosperous?
The United States is routinely the top humanitarian donor in the world, therefore the impact of the freeze on aid will be enormous. A humanitarian official declared on Saturday that “it’s a global freak out at the moment.”
The freeze “interrupts critical life-saving work including clean water to infants, basic education for kids, ending the trafficking of girls, and providing medications to children and others suffering from disease,” according to a statement released Saturday by InterAction, an alliance of international nongovernmental organisations. It halts aid in nations like Taiwan, Syria, and Pakistan that are vital to American interests.
“The recent stop-work cable from the State Department suspends programs that support America’s global leadership and creates dangerous vacuums that China and our adversaries will quickly fill,” the statement said.
According to one humanitarian official, the cable’s details are “as bad as can be,” and the pause is extremely disruptive.
While they anticipated reductions or adjustments to aid to certain regions, another source told CNN that they did not anticipate such a broad and sudden halt.
They claimed that a halt in US help might be harmful and that the world’s humanitarian needs are urgent.
The US “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values,” according to Trump’s executive order.
One of the officials did point out that the freeze targets global health and other assistance programs that have bipartisan support and are in the US’ best interests.
It is in our best interests to prevent pandemics. We are interested in world stability,” they declared.
In a letter to Rubio on Friday, Democratic Representatives Gregory Meeks of New York and Lois Frankel of Florida stated that initiatives like the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which seem to be impacted by the freeze, “rely on an unbroken supply of medications.” Republican President George W. Bush introduced PEPFAR and PMI, which have long had bipartisan backing.
Frankel is a member of the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees State Department and USAID money, while Meeks is the top Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
They went on to say that people all across the world, including in war-torn Gaza, Sudan, Haiti, and Ukraine, depend on the United States’ ongoing aid supply.
“Congress has appropriated and cleared these funds for use, and it is our constitutional duty to make sure these funds are spent as directed,” the letter read. “These funds respond directly to your stated challenge of carrying out a foreign policy that makes the United States stronger, safer, and more prosperous.”
On Saturday, the International AIDS Society issued a warning, saying that stopping PEPFAR would endanger millions of lives. “This is a matter of life or death,” stated Beatriz Grinsztejn, president of the IAS, in a statement. More than 20 million people get life-saving antiretrovirals from PEPFAR; halting its financing effectively ends their HIV treatment. People will perish and HIV will resurface if that occurs.