The Trump administration’s sudden halt on U.S. foreign aid is causing chaos inside groups ranging from health providers to landmine removers — interrupting lifesaving programs as officials struggle to understand the scope of the directive.
Following the Friday order from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, leaders of aid organizations are looking at which programs to stop, and whether to immediately cut staff or even shut down. As they seek waivers, aid groups are scrambling to adjust — from seeking non-federal funds to help refugees arriving in the U.S. to halting efforts at HIV clinics in Africa.
“This ‘stop work’ order is cruel and deadly,” said Asia Russell, the executive director of Health GAP, a nonprofit working on access to HIV treatment in developing countries. “It will kill people.”
Many federal workers, from the Pentagon to the U.S. Agency for International Development, are confused by the wording of the order, such as what exactly could qualify for an exemption. In some cases, their ability to get information is being stymied: In a note to staff obtained by POLITICO, a top USAID official told employees they needed prior top-level approval to even talk to institutions outside of the agency.
“The pause on all foreign assistance means a complete halt,” Ken Jackson, USAID’s assistant to the administrator for management and resources wrote in an agency-wide email to some 10,000 employees. Jackson said “all communications outside the agency, including to the State Department, must be approved by the Agency Front Office.” Failure to do so, he wrote, would result in unspecified disciplinary action.
Some USAID officials said that prompted them to reconsider requesting waivers. One said that “anyone that contradicts [the stop-work order] is seen as obstructionist, so putting something forward for a waiver can be risky.” The person, like others in this story, requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue.
Spokespersons for the State Department and USAID did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Among the aid groups that appear affected are ones that remove landmines from conflict zones; provide testing and treatment for people with HIV in many African countries through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; fund investigative reporting into Russian disinformation and organized crime networks; and tackle food insecurity worldwide.
The order also affects foreign military financing programs to places such as Ukraine, Jordan and Taiwan. The extent of that impact is still uncertain. “I’m not sure anyone knows all the details right now and key folks are almost certainly trying to unpack the actions and implications,” a former senior Pentagon official said.
The U.S. is the world’s No. 1 provider of humanitarian aid. The billions involved are less than 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget, but advocates say the money is key to protecting lives and helping America’s global reputation as it competes for influence with geopolitical rivals such as China and Russia.
The U.S. foreign assistance budget also includes many areas outside the realm of traditional humanitarian aid.
“State Department counterterrorism advisers around the world may need to fly home since their contracts are also funded out of — guess what — foreign assistance,” one U.S. official familiar with the matter said.
When President Donald Trump took office, he quickly issued an executive order demanding a 90-day halt on foreign assistance. But it was not clear at the time whether that order applied only to future grants or existing ones.
Rubio’s directive on Friday clarified that nearly everything should stop immediately. The State Department and USAID began notifying groups that they had to stop their work.
The goal of the freeze, Rubio’s directive said, was to assess all foreign aid programs and put information on them into “one centralized repository” from which senior officials could assess whether they aligned with U.S. priorities and interests.
But many in the aid space said they couldn’t remember any such sudden halt to funding in the past. They also didn’t understand why programs had to be stopped so that the new administration could inventory and review them.
Some NGO leaders said even several weeks without funding could force them to shut down.
“We operate on a shoestring budget. In 30 days you’ll start to see a very significant cash crunch across the board and probably some bankruptcies,” said the head of one non-governmental group that receives State Department and USAID funding, who was granted anonymity as they feared they would lose future contracts if they spoke out publicly. “It’s an absolute dumpster fire and no one has any idea what’s going on.”
Some top aid organizations have consulted lawyers to mount a legal fight against the order, arguing the blanket halt on aid programs doesn’t mesh with existing laws and regulations and may violate government contracts.
Many were reaching out to lawmakers on Capitol Hill for help, and some Democrats urged a resumption of the aid.
Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), ranking member in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State and Related Programs, warned in a letter to Rubio on Friday that the freeze could be deadly, referring to, among others, PEPFAR and the President’s Malaria Initiative, which provide drugs for HIV and malaria to millions of people.
“These lives depend on an uninterrupted supply of medicines,” the two Democrats wrote.
Russell, of Health GAP, said the stop-work order “will snatch HIV medicines, prevention services and support from the hands of adults, babies and young people across PEPFAR-supported countries.”
Many nurses, doctors and other health care workers have been told to stop work across clinics in South Africa, said Sibongile Tshabalala, who chairs the Treatment Action Campaign, an HIV/AIDS civil society group. “They’re unable to continue, they’re frustrated, they don’t know what to do,” Tshabalala said about the health care workers whose organizations received letters from USAID to stop work.
“We cannot afford 90 days because it will cost us lives,” she said about the expected duration of the aid freeze. People working for organizations ordered to stop work will also lose their jobs, she added.
And between 450 and 500 people who are contractors in USAID’s global health bureau are waiting to find out if they’ll be out of a paycheck for 90 days, as the pause on foreign assistance includes them, said one person familiar with the situation, who was granted anonymity to speak without fear of reprisal. Their leadership is expected to request a waiver for them.
The order also affects billions of dollars in foreign military financing.
The program provides grants and loans to allied nations for purchasing defense equipment, services and training from American firms. Advocates of the program consider it an economic engine that helps allies with their security.
Although the new order excludes Israel’s $3.3 billion share and Egypt’s $1.3 billion share of the budget, the remaining $1.5 billion designated for other governments, such as Ukraine, Jordan and Taiwan, is in limbo.
The freeze and uncertainty surrounding the future of that funding poses a significant challenge for U.S. defense firms, especially smaller companies with thin profit margins.
“We understand and respect a new administration’s desire to evaluate programs,” said Keith Webster, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Defense and Aerospace Council. “However, given the fragility of our defense industrial complex, we would ask that this assessment be done very quickly.”
Advocates for Ukraine in particular were trying to understand the impact. While most military aid to Ukraine goes through programs other than State’s foreign military financing, the billions that have been doled out through that program, could, in theory, be halted, two former Biden administration officials familiar with the issue said.
A good deal could come down to the details of individual contracts, but some of the impact might not be felt for months, one former official said. Ukraine also receives significant humanitarian and economic aid that is likely to be cut.
The stop-work also affects groups that provide services to refugees and similar groups who have recently arrived in the U.S., such as Afghans who helped the American military in Afghanistan. The new arrivals are typically eligible for temporary assistance to find housing, jobs and English classes.
“Without these resources, 6,000 newly arrived refugees we are currently serving may face the prospect of eviction and food insecurity at a time of critical need,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, an aid organization.
Many aid leaders fear that the Trump administration will never resume much of the funding.
“All the organizations are having emergency meetings to figure out how they manage the little cash they have left,” said Evelyn Farkas of the McCain Institute, a non-partisan organization that promotes democracy and human rights. “This feels to them like a hard-core game to close USAID and close down U.S. development writ large. If so, the repercussions will be cruel and long lasting.”
Joe Gould, Jamie Dettmer and Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.