WASHINGTON: The US State Department issued a “stop-work” order for all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, according to a cable seen by Reuters, after President Donald Trump ordered a pause to review if aid allocation was aligned with his foreign policy.
The cable, drafted by the Department’s foreign assistance office and approved by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said waivers have been issued for military financing for Israel and Egypt. No other countries were mentioned in the cable.
The move risks cutting off billions of dollars of life-saving assistance. The United States is the largest single donor of aid globally - in fiscal year 2023, it disbursed $72 billion in assistance.
Just hours after taking office last Monday, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance pending a review of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policy but the scope of the order was not immediately known. The State Department cable said effective immediately, senior officials “shall ensure that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance” until Rubio has made a decision after a review. It says that for existing foreign assistance awards stop-work orders shall be issued immediately until reviewed by Rubio.
“This is lunacy,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who is now president of Refugees International, said. “This will kill people. I mean, if implemented as written in that cable ... a lot of people will die.”
“There’s no way to consider this as a good-faith attempt to sincerely review the effectiveness of foreign assistance programming. This is just simply a wrecking ball to break as much stuff as possible,” Konyndyk said.
Trump’s order is unlawful, argued a source familiar discussions in Congress on the move. — AFP
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