Despite verbal assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio about allowing lifesaving humanitarian aid to continue, international aid and development work funded by the U.S. government have almost entirely come to a halt, multiple leaders in humanitarian aid confirmed to ABC News.
Many organizations say they are now worried food from U.S. farmers that had been designated for some of the poorest countries and programs to help malnourished children in conflict zones is at risk of perishing.
One humanitarian aid leader, who asked that ABC News not use their name as many organizations are worried about retribution from the Trump administration, described sitting on over 1,000 tons of food in Mozambique that needs to be distributed. “It’s utterly, utterly wasteful,” the leader said on the phone.
The problem is threefold. The State Department last week promised “waivers” that would allow some aid programs focused on lifesaving help, including food, water and nutrition, to continue despite widespread stop-work orders issued by the Trump administration.
But organizations have been told they must wait for the State Department or U.S. Agency for International Development to inform them that their specific programs have been approved under these waivers and given the green light to go forward. While some organizations have received limited waivers for some of their programs in certain countries, others have not.
Plus, thousands of USAID staff members have been told to return home from posts abroad, and hundreds more in Washington, D.C., could be put on administrative leave. Partnering organizations and international nongovernmental organizations say their emails and questions are going unanswered. On top of all of the confusion, there is the lack of actual cash to pay for programs.
When asked about the urgent warnings from humanitarian aid partners that the waiver system was not working, Secretary of State Marco Rubio doubled down and questioned the organizations’ competence.
“If it saves lives, if it’s emergency lifesaving aid — food, medicine, whatever — they have a waiver. I don’t know how much clearer we can be. And if they’re not applying it, then maybe they’re not a very good organization and maybe they shouldn’t be getting money at all,” Rubio told reporters last Tuesday.
But various USAID officials and humanitarian aid leaders insisted to ABC News that despite Rubio’s public statements, waivers were not working.
“Right now, there is no USAID humanitarian assistance happening. There are waivers put in place by Secretary Rubio for emergency food assistance and a number of other sectors, but they are a fraud and a sham and intended to give the illusion of continuity, which is untrue,” a USAID official in the humanitarian division said on a call with reporters on Friday.
“There is no staff left anymore to actually process waiver requests or to move money or to make awards or to do anything,” the official added. “We’ve ceased to exist, and any assertions to the contrary, by anyone, are untrue.”
One executive for a humanitarian aid organization described conversation with lawmakers who were, they said, in disbelief to hear that organizations who are trying to continue life-saving work delivering food and water were still locked out the federal payment system and unable to access cash. “Surely, there is cash?’ I had to say, ‘No, no, there is no cash.’” the humanitarian aid leader told ABC News. “We are having to first get through that disbelief that this would actually be happening in this way.”
Organizations across the globe have described being locked out of federal payment systems or unable to draw down funds, even for services already rendered. Many have not been able to access funds since December.
One leader in humanitarian aid described a conversation with lawmakers, saying they said, “Surely, there is cash.”
“I had to say, ‘No, no, there is no cash.’ We are having to first get through that disbelief that this would actually be happening in this way,” the humanitarian aid leader told ABC News. Other leaders, too, have described talking to allies on Capitol Hill who were shocked to learn that the cash had been cut off.
The impacts of the global freeze on American aid are widespread. While the U.S. spends around 1% of its federal budget on foreign aid, it is still the largest contributor of humanitarian aid worldwide.
Gena Perry, executive director of the American Soybean Association’s World Initiative for Soy in Human Health, told ABC News there is about 60,000 metric tons of soy product worth $23 million for the Department of Agriculture’s Food for Progress program that “can’t be delivered right now,” following the stop-work orders.
As of Friday, the foremost U.S. emergency food aid program, Food for Peace, remained subject to stop-work orders. As a result, aid agencies estimate over 500 million metric tons of U.S. food commodities, from American farmers and manufacturers, are stuck in various locations and not being distributed.
According to the World Food Program, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, there are an estimated 4.5 million children facing acute malnutrition. Humanitarian aid partners estimated more than 70 sites for testing and treating tens of thousands of malnourished children are being shuttered, as well as 92 health facilities.
Amid the conflict in Sudan, an estimated 48 health facilities serving hundreds of thousands of people are now closed, according to multiple aid organizations.
Many nonprofit and aid organizations have worried about going on the record and talking to reporters about the impacts of the freeze, out of fear they will be singled out and face retribution. While some of the largest organizations are frantically working to move money around to keep their operations afloat, others are already facing real financial consequences and are at risk of shutting down immediately.
“We’re in the midst of a global refugee crisis affecting more than 120 million people all over the world. … These stop-work orders and this foreign aid freeze puts a stop to all that people who were, a week ago, getting assistance, getting food, getting healthcare, getting treatment for their trauma,” Noah Gottschalk, senior director of international advocacy at HIAS, a global Jewish refugee and immigrant aid organization, told ABC News. “So, it’s an incredible slap to the face for some of the world’s most vulnerable people, people who have already experienced so much suffering.”
Gottschalk said his organization alone has had to stop programs for survivors of sexual violence in Latin America and stop healthcare support to children across Africa. The organization is unsure which of its programs will be given the green light to go forward. He described how partners and colleagues are waiting to hear if work distributing vaccines and vouchers for food or running schools, for example, will be deemed “lifesaving.”
Beyond humanitarian concerns, aid organizations and diplomats are worried about national security risks because of the sudden freeze.
“The U.S. is abandoning some of the most desperate people in the world right now, and it absolutely will create a vacuum. And I’m deeply concerned about who is going to fill that vacuum, whether it’s armed groups, whether it’s cartels, human traffickers,” Gottschalk added.
Work done by the U.S. military in Syria to secure camps holding thousands of Islamic State fighters has been frozen during the chaotic funding freezes. Nonprofit organizations have reported security guards walking off the job at some of these ISIS camps after the initial stop-work orders.
“We see it in Syria and Sudan — already places completely disrupted by conflict, internal conflict where communities were relying on emergency food aid, cash assistance to buy food in order to keep people alive. It will result in higher risk of conflict. There’s no doubt about it,” one international nonprofit leader told ABC News.
Other experts in international development have warned the funding freeze could make the crisis at the U.S. southern border worse. Aid organizations told ABC News that funding for “narcotics interdiction” in Colombia was paused, which had totaled over $380 million annually. There is a real risk that cartels can fill the vacuum and worsen the mass migration in the region.
The White House and State Department have insisted they are successfully rooting out waste. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News this week, “President Trump’s main goal since Day One: ensuring that every penny that goes out from Washington, D.C., aligns with his ‘America First’ principles, and that’s certainly true when it comes to foreign aid. The American taxpayers have been funding just useless priorities overseas.”
While it is common practice for incoming administrations to restructure and reprioritize aid, the Trump administration has instead effectively embarked on a wholescale shuttering of programs, many of which had long enjoyed bipartisan support.
“An incoming administration will always, you know, reassess activities and essentially map out a vision and a strategy around how it wants to use development as a soft-power tool,” one executive with a humanitarian aid organization told ABC News. “I think what you’re seeing now is blatant lies about how stuff is being used, and secondly, the disruptive way they are burning down the house in this fashion will actually lead to really negative, perhaps unintended but certainly avoidable, negative consequences.”
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