The Trump administration is eliminating nearly all of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid contracts and canceling $60 billion in overall U.S. foreign assistance, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
According to the AP, "the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multiyear USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion." The cuts amount to about 92% of USAID’s grants.
Cancelling the foreign aid could have sweeping negative impacts for Americans.
U.S. farmers are paid billions to grow food that is distributed through USAID initiatives. So cancelling those contracts could spell economic disaster for farms that would lose that funding source.
And billions of that aid goes toward mitigating the spread of deadly disease outbreaks, such as Ebola and HIV, which threaten Americans if they emerge in the United States.
Already, during a profoundly strange Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, co-President Elon Musk said he and his Department of Government Efficiency organization “briefly” eliminated funding to stop the spread of Ebola, a virus that destroys organs and causes painful internal bleeding. The virus kills roughly 50% of all people who contract it, according to the World Health Organization, which President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of on Day 1 of his new presidency.
Musk claimed that the “mistake” was rectified, but officials say that’s not true. The United States’ Ebola prevention efforts have “been largely halted since Musk and his DOGE allies moved last month to gut the global-assistance agency and freeze its outgoing payments,” The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
USAID humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela is displayed at a warehouse on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, on Feb. 19, 2019.
“There have been no efforts to ‘turn on’ anything in prevention,” Nidhi Bouri, who oversaw USAID’s response to disease outbreaks during the Biden administration, told The Washington Post.
Trump and Musk made foreign aid one of their first targets after Trump took office in January, freezing virtually all foreign aid spending and ordering the termination of thousands of USAID staff.
The freeze and firings led to multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration.
A court had ordered the Trump administration to lift the freeze, which the administration did not comply with.
"Plaintiffs submitted evidence that defendants have not lifted the suspension or freeze of funds as the [temporary restraining order] required. Defendants have not rebutted that evidence, and when asked today, defendants were not able to provide any specific examples of unfreezing funds pursuant to the Court's TRO," U.S. District Judge Amir Ali said on Tuesday.
Ali ordered the Trump administration to pay roughly $2 billion in contracts that had already been completed, giving a deadline of 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday.
But Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts put that order on hold while the Trump administration appeals.
“It’s really just a play for time—in this case, perhaps as little as two days—to give the justices time to sort out whether or not they should pause Judge Ali’s ruling or force the government to turn the challenged foreign aid funding back on while the litigation challenging its suspension continues,” Steve Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told CNN.
However, given that the Supreme Court ruled that Trump was immune from prosecution for actions he took as president, it’s possible the right-wing court both allows the administration to stiff contractors for work they’ve already completed, and neuters Congress of its powers of the purse.
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