U.S. freezes almost all foreign aid

Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as secretary of state by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington on January 21. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters via CNN Newsource)

The US State Department has frozen nearly all foreign assistance worldwide effective immediately days after President Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order Monday to put a hold on such assistance for 90 days.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a cable, seen by CNN, to all US diplomatic posts on Friday outlining the move, which threatens billions of dollars of funding from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for programs worldwide.

Foreign assistance has been the target of ire from Republicans in Congress and Trump administration officials, but the funding accounts for very little of the overall US budget. The scope of the executive order and subsequent cable has left humanitarian officials reeling.

The cable calls for immediate “stop work” orders on existing foreign assistance and pauses new aid. In the coming month, the cable said, the administration will develop standards for a review of whether the assistance is “aligned with President Trump’s foreign policy agenda.”

“Decisions whether to continue, modify, or terminate programs will be made following this review,” the cable states, noting that such a review should be completed within 85 days.

The order from the State Department provides a waiver for emergency food assistance as well as for foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt. The cable does not specifically mention any other countries that receive foreign military financing like Ukraine or Taiwan.

One humanitarian official said the pause is incredibly disruptive and said the specifics of the cable are “as bad as can be.”

Another official told CNN that while they expected there to be cuts or changes to assistance to specific areas, they were not expecting such a sweeping and immediate pause. They said that the humanitarian needs worldwide are acute and a freeze in assistance from the US – the biggest humanitarian donor in the world – could be detrimental.

In his executive order, Trump claimed that the US “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”

However, one of the officials noted that assistance programs, such as those related to global health, which are targeted by the freeze, are in the US’ interest and had enjoyed bipartisan support.

“Making sure there are not pandemics is in our interest. Global stability is in our interest,” they said.