By Michelle Nichols and Dan Burns
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.S. Agency for International Development has told all aid groups to immediately pause all U.S.-funded programs “until further notice” as humanitarian groups grapple with a lack of clarity on waivers to President Donald Trump’s 90-day aid pause.
All USAID payments have also stopped. The agency made no payments on Tuesday for the first time since the fiscal year began on Oct. 1, according to U.S. Treasury data. On Monday USAID paid out $8 million and last week a total of $545 million.
Just hours after taking office on Jan. 20, Trump ordered a 90-day pause so foreign aid contributions could be reviewed to see if they align with his “America First” foreign policy. The U.S. is the world’s largest aid donor.
The State Department then issued a “stop work” order on Friday for all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, sparking a steady stream of individual notices to aid groups and U.N. agencies telling them to halt specific programs.
Amid what some humanitarians have described as chaos and disorganization, USAID on Tuesday officially gave aid groups a blanket order to “take immediate action to pause implementation of USAID program-funded activities and otherwise refrain from further commitments or expenditures of USAID funding, until further notice,” according to a memo seen by Reuters.
LIFE AND DEATH DECISIONS
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has issued waivers for emergency food aid life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence help and supplies.
However, the lack of detail in Trump’s executive order and the ensuing waivers has left humanitarian groups scrambling to come up with their own definitions and work out whether to take the financial risk of continuing that assistance.
“We have to gather all of the inputs from around the world and figure out what is covered. What isn’t,” said a U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Before the U.S. waiver for life-saving assistance was issued yesterday, a senior aid official said his organization had to consider the future of dozens of programs around the world treating malnourished children under the age of 5. “We had to make a decision – do we close the doors of those stabilization centers and send those children home in the knowledge that they’re probably going to die?” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And does that mean also that we’re not accepting patients into those clinics for future treatment knowing that those kids are going to die too?” said the official. “We were able, thankfully, to find flexible internal funding to … essentially hedge against the financial risk – but this is not a solution that will be available for the vast majority of programs.”
U.N. ‘TRYING TO FIGURE THINGS OUT’
The funding freeze has also hit small organizations, such as Casa Frida in Mexico, which provides LGBT migrants with food, temporary shelter and other support and receives 60% of its funding from the United States, said director Raul Caporal.
The organization has already cut back on some legal and mental health services and is weighing cutting staff and closing one or two of its three offices, Caporal said.
“We’re taking extraordinary measures to streamline the resources we have left,” he said, adding that many of the LGBT migrants say they have fled violence against gay, lesbian, and transgender people.
United Nations agencies are “trying to figure things out and to get a bit more clarity on the impact,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed for more exemptions.
A two-week training course for senior U.N. police advisers based in Italy came to an abrupt halt on Monday due to the U.S. pause on foreign aid, a U.N. peacekeeping spokesperson said.
The freeze would affect many planned police training programs as well, the spokesperson said.
The U.N. Mine Action Service, which helps clear landmines and explosive remnants of war, had been told to suspend work in Mali and Sudan, the spokesperson added.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Dan Burns and Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Stephen Coates)
