When Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month that humanitarian activities would be exempt from the freeze on foreign aid, health workers around the world sighed for collective relief.
However, the new directive has put such exemptions on hold.
Several senior employees of the USAID Global Health of Global Health Bureau said on Tuesday that “please refrain from further approval,” saying “please refrain from further approval,” according to a copy of the New York Times. He says to them, “Please refrain from further approval.”
High-ranking Humanitarian Aid Office officials received similar instructions during this week's meeting.
For weeks, USAID officials and the organizations, contractors and consultants who partner with them have struggled to continue the kind of work Rubio has promised to preserve.
Programs that fall under Rubio's “Lifesaving” aid definition have been issued with some exemptions, but a payment system called Phoenix, which relies on USAID to pay financial aid, has been accessed for several weeks. you can't. That means even exempt programs struggle to continue, according to multiple USAID employees and partner organizations that rely on funds they distribute.
The State Department did not reply to requests for comment for this article.
On Tuesday, billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who was empowered to fight the agency, told reporters at the Oval Office that he told reporters “for Ebola prevention and HIV prevention.” I turned on the funds.” But in reality, Ebola funds and virtually all HIV prevention funds remain frozen, according to two USAID employees and several aid groups.
A young engineer working for Musk has seized control of the agency's payment system that he has taken over in recent weeks. Also, as part of Musk's demolishing oversight, the State Department recently distributed plans to cut USAID staff from around 10,000 workers to 611.
Without access to funding, organizations affiliated with USAID could not pay workers and suppliers for projects that rely on US government funds.
The Norwegian Refugee Council, which conducts US-backed humanitarian work in about 20 countries, said it could not take advantage of the exemption as the agency's payments have stopped.
“We currently have millions of dollars in unpaid payment requests to the US government,” the group said in a statement, in which civilians in conflict zones such as Ukraine, Afghanistan and Sudan stop working if work stops. He said he would suffer. “Without an immediate solution, we may be forced to suspend U.S.-funded humanitarian programs by the end of February.”
The State Department and the new political appointees of the USAID have introduced other hurdles.
On one mission in Asia, authorities received exemptions from three programs, including one for the eradication of malaria, but were later said to require exemptions for individual projects under those programs. said someone with knowledge of the deadlock.
An agonized USAID staff said this week that the suspension of the exemption is a sign that the end of life-saving jobs and other projects is approaching.
This week, agency officials were notified that around 350 awards would be cancelled. The number of these contracts on the list that was distributed last week identified around 800 potential award cancellations and was not immediately clear.
Unlike previous notifications, emails sent to staff on Wednesday did not encourage them to check for potential exemptions, even if they warned about some of the latest cancellations.
Those represented by Trump and Musk are trying to delay and undermine efforts to terminate the program by conducting their own review of the contract to prevent life-saving jobs from being cancelled. I'm accusing him of being there. However, these reviews are necessary to grant the exemption promised by Rubio.
As the cuts progress, unions representing not only USAID staff but also businesses and organizations working with aid agencies are rushing to oppose the cuts through a series of litigation. Some have managed to get a temporary restraining order on the President's efforts to dismantle the agency.
The plaintiffs argued that the reduction measures were unconstitutional and unlawful as Congress must allocate the institution's funds and, by law, approve their withdrawal.
In one lawsuit filed by a company with a USAID agreement for the Global Program, the developers are saying that $250 million worth of health supplies are in transit or “lacked down in warehouses around the world.” I reported being stuck. Freeze. The company's chemonics have had to hit about two-thirds of its US-based staff in recent weeks.
Trump administration's lawyers argued in response to one of the lawsuits that “the president has broad discretion to set conditions” regarding the provisions of aid.
As legal battles are worn, there is a dramatic shift towards the best foreign aid agencies of the US government.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration fired USAID inspector Paul K. Martin. He risked the misuse and waste of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at risk the day after he issued a warning that staff cuts and spending would freeze. I'm well versed in dismissals.
The report recorded confusion over the exemption. Almost $500 million in food aid is at risk of corruption, and its ability to return partner organizations to veterinarians has made it even more difficult to ensure that US money is not heading towards terrorism. I did.
Also, on Tuesday, the agency made another round of cuts to the contractor.
And recently, the General Services Agency, the federal agency that oversees building leases and other contracts, has ended the lease of USAID at its headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building in downtown Washington. The General Services Department said in a statement Tuesday that it knocked down the aid agency signs and that the 570,000 square feet of space will be “reused to meet the needs of other governments.”
On Monday, USAID employees in the building lobby reported that they saw staff from other agencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, inspecting office spaces. According to a copy of an internal email obtained by the New York Times, the employee learned Tuesday that he lost parking privileges due to the agency's lease being cancelled.
Most agency employees are prohibited from joining headquarters for more than a week, but some of them have access to their work email accounts this week to prepare for their departure.
Foreign services officials working abroad have been ordered to leave this month's post and return to the US this month. The order is temporarily delayed by a federal judge who will hear the next debate in Thursday's case.
Employees say they expect a large portion of the USAID workforce to be fired or pushed out, and a small number of people are expected to be absorbed by the State Department. Both Trump and Musk, who posted dark conspiracy theories about aid agencies on social media platform X, are seeking a mise.
