By Humeyra Pamuk, Maggie Michael, Lena Masri
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration urged U.S. Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID) employees to affix the hassle to rework how Washington allocates help all over the world consistent with Trump’s “America First” coverage. It threatened “disciplinary motion” for any employees ignoring the administration’s orders.
A sharply-worded memo despatched on Saturday to greater than 10,000 employees at USAID supplied additional steerage to Friday’s “stop-work” directive that successfully put a sweeping freeze on U.S. overseas help worldwide. The memo, reviewed by Reuters, laid out expectations for the workforce on the best way to obtain Trump’s objectives.
“We have now a accountability to help the President in attaining his imaginative and prescient,” Ken Jackson, assistant to the administrator for administration and assets wrote within the inside memo, titled “Message and Expectation to the Workforce.”
“The President has given us an amazing alternative to rework the best way we strategy overseas help for many years to return,” the memo stated. Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the memo with a number of sources.
Since taking workplace final week, Trump has taken steps towards fulfilling his vow to remake a federal forms he believes was hostile to him throughout his 2017-2021 presidency. He has reassigned or fired tons of of federal employees in simultaneous strikes in opposition to a swath of companies.
Hours after taking workplace, Trump ordered a 90-day pause in overseas help to evaluate if it was aligned together with his overseas coverage priorities. On Friday, the State Division issued a stop-work order worldwide even for current and appropriated help, calling into query billions of {dollars} of life-saving help.
America is the biggest single donor of help globally. In fiscal 12 months 2023, it disbursed $72 billion in help. It offered 42% of all humanitarian help tracked by the United Nations in 2024.
USAID and the White Home Nationwide Safety Council (NSC) didn’t reply to a request for touch upon this story.
Friday’s memo shocked the humanitarian teams and communities conducting improvement help throughout the globe. Whereas the scope of the directive seems far-reaching, uncertainties linger over how it will likely be carried out.
The memo on Saturday supplied solely partial readability.
The pause on overseas help spending means “a whole halt,” it stated. The one exceptions are for emergency humanitarian meals help and for presidency officers returning to their responsibility stations. Waivers permitting supply of emergency meals through the evaluate interval would require “detailed info and justification.”
The memo stated additional waivers would require two layers of approval – one from USAID management and one other by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“Any waiver should be totally justified to show that the precise help for which the waiver is sought is critical for lifesaving functions, can’t be carried out by present U.S. direct rent employees, or would in any other case pose important dangers to nationwide safety,” the memo stated.
All overseas help packages will bear “complete evaluate” through the pause in spending, the memo says. “It is very important emphasize that it’s not enterprise as normal. Each program can be totally scrutinized.”
Saturday’s directive additionally banned any communications outdoors the company, together with between USAID and the State Division, until they’re authorised by the previous’s entrance workplace.
“Failure to abide by this directive, or any of the directives despatched out earlier this week and within the coming weeks, will end in disciplinary motion,” it stated.
USAID started sending a discover to contractors ordering them to “instantly situation stop-work orders” and to “amend, or droop current awards.”
VULNERABLE POPULATIONS
Humanitarian organizations and different donors are scrambling to know how the directive will impression life-saving operations in international locations throughout the globe. It’s too quickly to inform whether or not or what particular companies should be paused, they stated.
Among the many locations the U.S. performs a vital life-saving position is famine-stricken Sudan, the place no less than 24.6 million folks urgently want meals help, in accordance with a December report from the Built-in Meals Part Classification (), a worldwide meals safety watchdog. The U.S. offered 45% p.c of humanitarian help recorded by the U.N. for Sudan in 2024.
“Any discount in funding would inevitably have an effect on essentially the most susceptible folks counting on humanitarian operations in Sudan,” stated a spokesperson for the United Nations Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Even when the coverage does permit emergency meals help to proceed, it doesn’t point out different life-saving companies required to deal with folks struggling the results of acute malnutrition and hunger.
“Starvation doesn’t simply go away folks with an empty abdomen. It weakens the physique’s potential to battle off infections and illnesses, making them a lot extra susceptible to sickness, which may result in severe well being issues and even loss of life,” stated Deepmala Mahla, chief humanitarian officer for the reduction group CARE.
“This isn’t nearly funding,” she stated. “It’s concerning the very survival of essentially the most susceptible in battle zones.”
