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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered an immediate freeze on almost all existing foreign aid programs until they can be checked for compliance with President Donald Trump’s policies, according to an internal memo seen by the Financial Times.
The move will affect international aid deals administered by Washington, including through the United States Agency for International Development, worth billions of dollars and covering countries around the world.
In a cable sent to the State Department and USAID on Friday, Rubio said that everything is new foreign aid payments were to be suspended and contracting and grant officers were to “immediately issue stop work orders . . . until the time determined by the secretary after the examination”.
The review period is expected to last as long as 85 days, leaving the fate of hundreds of US foreign aid contracts worth more than 70 billion dollars in 2022 fiscal year, potentially in limbo for as long as three months.
Rubio also ordered that all foreign aid disbursed through any agency or department be approved by the secretary of state, centralizing the review of all international aid programs within his office.
Rubio’s dispatch implements an executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office. In it, the president criticized the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy” as “inconsistent with American interests and in many cases contrary to American values,” and called for aid to be suspended.
In the early days of his second term in the White House, Trump took aggressive steps to reshape and reorient all agencies of the US government to carry out his policies.
Science agencies such as the National Institutes of Health have also paused grant work pending a review by the new administration, unnerving researchers.
There are some exceptions to Rubio’s aid freeze order, including “approved exemptions” for military funding for Israel and Egypt, as well as foreign emergency food aid. But the cable said that in addition to pausing new and existing contracts, US government agencies, including USAID, must stop releasing proposals for foreign aid projects.
Earlier this week, Rubio said in a statement that Trump had asked him “to make our core national interest the guiding mission of American foreign policy,” saying among his top priorities were curbing mass migration and ending climate policies that “weaken” America.
“Every dollar we spend, every program we fund and every policy we implement must be justified by answering three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?”
The State Department has been invited for comment.
