The Trump administration has ordered a three-month pause on almost all foreign development assistance pending a review to see what fits in with the president's “America First” policy. Aid groups and human rights watchdogs warn that the freeze will put countless lives around the world at risk.
The U.S. is the world’s largest provider of humanitarian assistance and a global leader on HIV prevention and treatment through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, program. In the 2023 fiscal year, the U.S. spent just short of $70 billion on development aid, most of it through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Within hours of taking office last week, President Donald Trump put all but the most urgently needed food assistance on hold, part of his charge to realign the nation's foreign stance with his America First policy. His executive order pauses new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds for 90 days while they are reviewed.
The move prompted questions in the U.S. and international aid community, at the United Nations, and in the halls of the Capitol.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a memo Tuesday exemptions to the freeze. These include life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance.
"This waiver does not apply to activities that involve abortions, family planning conferences, administrative costs ... gender or DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life saving assistance," the memo said.
On Tuesday, Jim Risch, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, used a weekly press conference to cast Trump’s move as fostering greater transparency as he lamented that previously it had been tough for the committee to get information from government agencies.
The State Department on Tuesday issued a lengthy explainer on the order, which it said seeks to ensure that programs are “efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda.”
“President Trump stated clearly that the United States is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people,” read the statement from State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce. "Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative.”
Exceptions, Bruce continued, included foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt and emergency food assistance. The memo also provided “examples of this egregious funding,” which included expenditures as large as $102 million to fund humanitarian aid nonprofit International Medical Corps’ work in war-battered Gaza and as relatively small as “$612,000 to fund technical assistance for family planning in Latin America.”
The White House also laid out its rationale for a similar move pausing domestic grants and loans starting on Tuesday, although press secretary Karoline Leavitt was unable to clarify which domestic programs are on pause.
"In the past four years, we've seen the Biden administration spend money like drunken sailors,” she said. “It's a big reason we've had an inflation crisis in this country. And it's incumbent upon this administration to make sure, again, that every penny is being accounted for, honestly."
The White House did not reply to VOA’s request for more details on which foreign assistance programs would be impacted. But on global public health issues, Trump’s stance is clear: He also announced, on his first day in office, that he would pull out of the World Health Organization, citing concerns that the U.S. is being “ripped off” as the organization’s largest donor. He did the same during his first term.
As stop-work orders are rolled out at U.S.-funded programs in dozens of countries, humanitarian groups are sounding the alarm about the future of billions of dollars' worth of programs that focus on issues such as gender equity, business development and the provision of U.S.-funded HIV drugs, which Biden officials called a “key pillar” of Washington’s relations with the developing world.
“The secretary-general notes with concern the announcement of a pause in U.S. foreign assistance,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations secretary-general. “He calls for additional exemptions to be considered to ensure the continued delivery of critical development and humanitarian activities for the most vulnerable communities around the world. Those lives and livelihoods depend on this support.”
The largest single USAID project last year provided $14 billion in macroeconomic assistance to Ukraine — critical, Ukraine has said, for supporting its population while fending off a Russian invasion.
“There are real concerns about the immediate impact of a stop-work order on foreign assistance,” said Esther Brimmer, James H. Binger senior fellow in global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations. “We must remember that foreign assistance includes such humanitarian projects that relate to administration of vaccines, for example, to children around the world to make sure that they don't get communicable diseases.”
Human rights watchdogs say they welcome robust accountability over U.S. taxpayer funds but not pausing assistance during the review.
“If you want to review all of the assistance, start your review,” said Nicole Widdersheim, deputy Washington director at Human Rights Watch.
“He wants to be the president that reinstates U.S. influence around the world and also helps America prosper,” Widdersheim said, speaking of Trump. “You're not going to be able to prosper if you're not going to help a country get out of conflict, if you're not going to help a country become democratic and have trusted institutions that work and protect investors' money and have a good business climate established and a good environment for investing in doing business and trade. I mean, that is the bottom line for development assistance.”
And the impact was also felt in direct ways on Tuesday. In Johannesburg, South Africa, workers at the city’s many U.S.-funded HIV organizations awoke to stop-work orders.
“I never thought I’d wake up in the morning and be told that I’d be banned from going to work,” a health worker told a leading Johannesburg newspaper. She gave her name only as Mary, saying she feared professional backlash.
“I’m breaching my Hippocratic oath to do no harm and to do good,” she continued. “I’m not there, which is harming people … and I take that oath very seriously.”
Kim Lewis contributed to this report. Some information for this story came from Reuters.
