USAID.gov: The State Department is implementing the new Trump Administration’s Executive Order on Reexamining and Realigning United States Foreign Aid
The weekend has been a rough one for the US Agency for International Development. According to the Internet Archive, its website went down on Saturday at 3 a.m.
“It needs to die,” he wrote. According to an AP report, employees of the Department of Government Efficiency were denied access to documents at the agency and that the Trump Administration took two security officials off the job.
The State Department’s website has a new page about the US Agency for International Development, which is responsible for funding aid projects around the world and managing more than 40 billion in federal spending in the coming year. That page was captured for the first time on Jan. 27, according to the Internet Archive.
There are seven items in this USAID section — a drastic reduction of the reports and information on the original USAID.gov website, which covered the wide range of the agency’s portfolio, from humanitarian assistance and global health to education and conflict prevention.
The State’s web page has a press release stating that they are implementing the President’s Executive Order on Reexamining and Realigning United States Foreign Aid.
That order was followed by the State Department effectively freezing USAID-funded projects around the world through a “stop-work” order while a review takes place to see if they align with the new Trump administration’s agenda. Emergency food aid was not given. Days later, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, also widened the exception to include “life-saving humanitarian assistance.” Rubio defined that as “medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”
The dissolution would extend beyond “the unlawful destruction of USAID’s life-saving work,” Gawande told NPR. The USAID is where the administration develops and demonstrates its plan for eviscerating other agencies.
Konyndyk said, “They have announced no plan and given no reason for taking everything down.” “They’re trying to do it behind the scenes rather than openly,” he said, so they don’t have to “defend what they’re doing” in announcements to the public.
The fate of USAID after the 9/11 stop work order: The problem in Pakistan’s response to the 9/11 attacks on humanitarian and medical services
The consequences of a diminished or erased USAID would be dire, Konyndyk said, noting that one key component of its programs is keeping outbreaks and epidemics from reaching U.S. shores.
The web shutdown comes in the wake of both the stop work order and the furloughing or laying off of hundreds of USAID employees. In his first two weeks in office, the Trump administration placed senior leadership at USAID on leave and laid off or furloughed more than 400 contractors in the agency’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance and also laid off hundreds more in its Global Health Bureau.
Democratic lawmakers in Congress are decrying these actions. The dissolution of USAID would be against our national interests according to a post by Sen. Chuck Schumer on Bluesky Friday evening.
The legality of changing the status of the agency is connected to where it came from. The Foreign Assistance Act mandated the creation of an independent agency to focus on development, which President John F. Kennedy did when he created the agency in 1961. The agency was formally established by Congress as an independent agency in 1998.
Konyndyk said that it cannot be undone by an executive order. “To actually disestablish the agency and dissolve it into the State Department will take an act of Congress.”
A notice sent to the government in Pakistan tells them to stop work on a number of US aid projects. They ranged from the reconstruction of 10 police stations damaged by unprecedented flooding in the summer of 2022 to merit and needs-based scholarships funded through the Pakistan Higher Education Commission.
The scope of the programs being affected in Pakistan was not commented upon by the US State Department. Among the key points: any waiver granted for life-saving activities is “temporary in nature” and the goal is to “rooting out waste … blocking woke programs … and exposing activities that run contrary to our national interests.” These goals cannot be met, say the memos, “if programs are on ‘auto-pilot.’ “
Nazari said the organizations contributed to humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan. He wouldn’t say why the charities stopped working, but a senior aid worker said it was because the charities were getting money from the US Agency for International Development. Like nearly all people interviewed for this story, he requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to media about the suspension to aid.
Amid the uncertainty, in Afghan bazaars, the price of items like bread flour, cooking oil and rice have been rising. The cost of goods and services was going up before President Trump was inaugurated. But traders tell NPR that the chaos and uncertainty following his suspension of foreign aid is keeping prices high.
It has created hardship for Aqlima, who is barely getting by. She asked that NPR not use her last name, worried the Taliban could identify her. She said she had to go through small tailoring jobs and that she wasn’t able to afford items like a gallon of cooking oil, which has gone up by $5. “If we use oil for one meal, we skip it for two,” she said. She can not afford firewood now that she has a wood heater. She said that they could only afford to breathe.
A senior aid worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the impact on charities is chaos. The problem with Afghanistan is that some of the projects rely on money from the US Agency for International Development.
The health care interruptions are related to vaccinations. A vaccinating in the western city of Herat said his work was stopped on January 27 because of a project manager’s decision. Ghafouri’s project was funded through the United Nations Population Fund and the Agency for Assistance and Development in Afghanistan. It was not known that his project used money obtained through the US government.
“The manager of our department told us to stop your work and wait for further information. Ghafouri told NPR that he is under tremendous pressure. I’m the only person in my family with a job. He said, “I need this work.”
The American University of Afghanistan: Suspensions for Online Classes for Girls in Decree the Taliban and the Future of Online Education in Afghanistan
One of the projects that has an uncertain future is running classes for girls in defiance of the Taliban. The hardline group does not allow girls to study beyond grade six, and so the project runs classes online, through the radio and even has a network of clandestine schools that educate over 5,000 girls across Afghanistan and employ over 100 teachers.
The project is “the brink of shutting down,” said one aid worker familiar with the situation. She requested anonymity because her aid group, like many more, does not want to be identified, to avoid drawing the ire of the Trump administration at a time when they are trying to negotiate a softening of the aid suspension.
The American University of Afghanistan has also suspended classes, according to an email sent to a student who took a screenshot of the message and shared it with NPR. “Once/if foreign aid is restored, then AUAF will begin teaching again,” the message read. The American University of Afghanistan is known as theAUAF. The school teaches through the Taliban and supports educating young women in defiance of Afghanistan’s rulers. A request for comment was not responded to by theAUF.