The United States, the world’s largest donor, prevents almost all foreign aids on Friday, only makes an exception to emergency food, and does military funding for Israel and Egypt.
External Affairs Minister Marco Rubio sent an internal memorandum during the days of an internal memorandum after President Donald Trump, which took over the “America’s first” policy to ban assistance abroad.
Memo said to the employees widely widened by the AFP, “No new prizes or extensions have been reviewed and approved, no new funds will be interrupted for new awards or expansion of the existing awards.”
Extensive order affects everything from development assistance to military assistance – including Ukraine, which has received billions of dollars in arms under the anterior of Trump, which tries to remove a Russian invasion.
Instructions also means that at least several months of American funding for Pepfar, anti-HIV/AIDS initiatives that buy anti-retroviral drugs to treat the disease in developing countries, largely in Africa .
Launched in 2003 under President George W. Bush, Pepfar is credited with saving some 26 million lives and recently enjoyed widespread popular support with biased lines in Washington.
But the Memo clearly made an exception to military aid to Israel – whose long -standing United States’ major arms packages have extended since the Gaza War – and Egypt, which has obtained liberal US defense financing because It has signed a peace treaty with Israel. 1979.
Rubio also created an exception to American contribution to emergency food aid, which is contributing to the worldwide crises, including the United States Sudan and Syria.
The Memo allows the State Department to create other case-by-cases exceptions and temporarily pay salaries to employees and other administrative expenses.
The memorandum called for an internal review of all foreign aid within 85 days.
In justifying the freeze, Rubio – who was a supporter of development aid as a senator – wrote that it was impossible for the new administration to assess whether existing foreign aid commitments are “not duplicate, not duplicate, and President Trump’s foreigners Combine the policy. “
– ‘Results of life or death’ –
The United States has long been the world’s top donor in terms of dollars, although many European nations, especially in Scandinavia, give much more as a percentage of their economies.
According to the Economic Cooperation and Development Organization, the United States provided foreign development aid of over $ 64 billion in foreign development assistance in 2023, for which records were available last year, which advises industrial countries.
Washington has received long -term assistance as a tool of its foreign policy, saying that it cares about a contrast development and attract with China, which mainly to search for natural resources. Is worried about.
Trump had already assumed the post, signed an executive order suspending foreign aid for 90 days on Monday, but it was not immediately clear how it would be implemented.
The anti-poverty group Oxfam said that Trump had been leaving a long-standing consensus in the United States for foreign aid.
Oxfam US President AB Maxman said in a statement, “Human and development aid is only for about one percent of the federal budget; it saves life, fights diseases, educates millions of children and reduces poverty Is.”
“Suspending and eventually cutting many of these programs can cause life or death consequences for countless children and families that are going through crisis,” he said.
World relief, a Christian-oriented human group, called the Trump administration to ensure the flow of significant assistance including disaster relief.
“We urge that the review of foreign development aid should be held rapidly and resulting in continuous priority of investments that save life and reduce human crises,” said Lanre Williams-Ayedun, senior vice-president of international programs.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
