Inside the chaos in Trump’s freezing of foreign aids

T.He dominoes fell really quickly. Monday, January 20, shortly after his inauguration, signed President Donald Trump one Executive Order It required a 90-day break on new foreign aid programs for efficiency and “consistency with US foreign policy.” The order received less attention than some of the others he signed that day, but may have much more far -reaching effects.

On the evening of Friday, January 24, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had issued a directive that went even further, effectively freezing operations at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the US government’s main provider of non -militarian foreign aid. No new projects were to be started, no contracts had to be expanded and the work had to be stopped on most existing programs. No later than Monday 27th January, at least 56 of USAid’s top brass was sent home on paid administrative leave for 90 days, allegedly cut off from their E -mail, and in case the message was not ready, The pictures from the walls of their office were removed.

Chaos and confusion began to spread through USAID ranks, both in Washington, DC, where there are about 15,000 employees and abroad, where there are thousands more. It also spread among the many non -state organizations and religious groups that receive funds from it, and the small businesses, the agency contracts to provide services. Some of them had to guess if their programs had to be paused in accordance with the conditions of their agreement with the Ministry of State, and others received suspension messages and memos from a variety of channels.

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Time spoke with several current and former senior officials in USAID and others who lead organizations, it supports the impact of moving on their activity. Almost everyone asked that time did not use their names because they did not want to jeopardize their future funding or employment.

On Tuesday morning, one of these aid organizations that drives dozens of child nutrition clinics in several extremely poor countries had an emergency meeting to try to decide if they should close them. “These children need to be fed every third to four hours of therapeutic feeding products to reverse the effects of malnutrition, prevent long -term damage and basically keep them alive,” says an official at NGO. “We had to make a decision: Do we close these centers? Or are we keeping them open with the risk of being in violation of our suspension message or Stop-Work order?”

Later that day, after NGO chose to keep the clinic open by reusing some non-American funding, Secretary Rubio released a Clarification The “life -saving humanitarian help” could continue. The organization believes, but is not sure that the clinics will fall under this headline.

Welfare groups around the world told time they made similar annoying choices. One had to decide whether to adhere to a stop-work order or deliver lunch to schoolchildren in poor communities, as it has done for years. It decided to obey the order and waste hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of perishable food. Another is to find out if they should close health clinics for pregnant mothers in Haiti, leaving them with little alternatives to a place to give birth. Yet another one was forced to pause a program that helped migrants on the run from Venezuela staying in South American countries (rather than continuing north to the United States. boundary) through labor education, housing and support from the host community.

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The United States plays a major role in responding to international crises and providing 40% of the world’s humanitarian assistance. Most people in the humanitarian sector acknowledge that Washington has the right to review how the more than $ 40 billion it spends on doing so every year. “The government has the power to conduct a review of expenses and programs against their priorities,” says a director of a major relief organization. “But the ways in which they go to it, in my mind, would undermine the likelihood that they actually have an auxiliary sector to work with when they move on.”

Questions that were sent to the State Department were unanswered by pressing time but one Media message Posted online says a break is the only way to really “examine and prevent” wasting expenses. (Foreign Aid represents about 1% of the federal budget.) “It is impossible to evaluate programs on autopilot because the participants boats within and outside the government-have little to no incentive to share details at the programmatic level, as long as dollars continues to flowAt“The note said.

Here is what foreign auxiliary experts say about the great effect of the temporary break.

It’s so far unseen

New administrations usually have a period of reviewing state -funded programs. Every incoming government wants to save money and be more efficient and to be seen, to do so. But no time talking to could remember that the agency’s funding was almost exclusively frozen while such a review is taking place. “The scope of the Trump administration’s freezer of USID programs is unprecedented,” said Tim Rieser, Foreign Policy Help to former Senator Patrick Leahy, who was chairman of the appropriation committee. Many of the programs will cease to be effective if they are not consistent. All the time as a result of the ends of contracts or the ends of our grant agreements, “says the leader of a relief organization.” Then there is an orderly way to reinvest American foreign aid. It’s just not this. ”

Agency needed reformAt But not disassembly

Most of the people Time talked to about USAD, both inside and outside the agency, agreed that it would take advantage of a bit of shaking. “There is real reform needed in the sector,” says the official at NGO. “Many of us have advocates for it.” Programs are duplicated. Some initiatives have survived their applicability or have led to addiction rather than the development results intended. There is waste and supervision is often difficult. The system tends to favor larger Western organizations and no less, more fast local agencies. “If there was a process through which all these programs could be reviewed, I think everyone would roll up their sleeves to get the programs that have been reviewed,” says a former senior USAID official. “But there is no such process.” Others were more cursing. “There are certainly things that can be done to improve USAID,” says Rieser, “but these people who know almost nothing about USAI’s programs or dedicated staff are not the ones who do.”

It’s chaotic

It is unclear from the government’s directives, which programs have been affected by the freezer by financing and which are exempt. And it is difficult to ascertain who to ask about it. Initiatives that promote diversity, justice and inclusion are obvious dissatisfaction, and collaboration with the World Health Organization is a non-goose area. Emergency food programs and “core life -saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and assistance” must be exempt, but it is unclear which programs fall under this description. School tuncher is sometimes the only food a child reliably gets in one day, but are they “core -hitting food” for example?

Individual programs must apply for an exception at the break, and thousands have, which, according to the sources of the time, have caused an backlog, worsened by the absence of leaders with the most knowledge of the programs. The media note from the Ministry of State says, “The process was successfully used dozens of times in the first several days; However, many requests could not provide the level of detail needed to allow a thorough evaluation. “

Due to the method by which USID funds are paid out, the only way to break was a break of all financing work that had to be paused. “I wish (current USAID management) would either give a more blanket declaration or that they allow their team and that’s what you can’t do,” the auxiliary list says.

It provides fear

It is unclear what the USAD leaders did to provoke in honor of officials who enforced a sudden draft. The stated reason from USA’s acting director Jason Gray was that he had “identified several actions within USAID that appear to have been designed to bypass the president’s executive orders and the mandate of the American people,” but former USAID -officials say, say, That none of the disposal knows what the action any of them took that would fall into this category. Post and Propublica.

Their unusual removal and arrival of new unknown staff in leadership do not have nervous employees who remain while at the same time increasing their workload. “People are scared, and when people are scared, they are on the side of being conservative and holding their heads down,” says a former USAD director. After Freeze, a current employee reported only an E email on a full working day. “People want to work, and they just sit there,” says the same executive. “People are afraid of writing e emails because all the work has stopped. And the American taxpayer pays for all this.”

It’s wasted

Managers of organizations who have received USAID financing in the past have to guess whether their budgets will be affected in the long term and plan accordingly to axis employees and close programs, just for the case. “The kind of catch-22 that all organizations are in is, if we promote work by trying to understand and interpret what is meant, then we could face the risk of financial outlay of millions of dollars that would not be reimbursed, “said a NGO manager. “If we do not promote the work, we have potentially perishable life -saving support stranded and wasted. And it is an impossible kind of paralysis that we are facing.”

It is against US interests

Foreign Aid is often said to be the third stage of national security along with defense and diplomacy. When people in difficult situations can be provided, it makes them less likely to want to leave or destabilize a government or try to use power to gain resources. “Foreign Aid is One of the tools in your tool set, and by ruining this tool set, you make America less safe, nor do you reach the goal of peace, “says Susan Reichle, a former senior manager at USAID. Others point to Perils to remove a steady source For relief in an increasingly destabilized world.