The newly installed director of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance sent a global cable Friday that orders an immediate pause on new foreign aid spending, as well as a stop-work order for existing grants and contracts.
United States aid officials and experts who reviewed the document told Devex that the new guidance intensifies U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order, which placed a 90-day pause on aid spending and could sow “chaos” throughout U.S. aid programs.
“Effective immediately, Assistant Secretaries and Senior Bureau Officials shall ensure that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance until such time as the Secretary shall determine, following a review,” reads the memo, which was sent by recent Trump appointee Peter Marocco and seen by Devex.
“For existing foreign assistance awards, contracting officers and grant officers shall immediately issue stop-work orders, consistent with the terms of the relevant award, until such time as the Secretary shall determine, following a review. Decisions whether to continue, modify, or terminate programs will be made following this review.”
The memo, sent to all diplomatic and consular posts — and known as an ALDAC — adds that no new requests for proposal, requests for application, notices of funding opportunities, or “any other kind of solicitation or request for foreign assistance funding” should be published by the State Department or USAID “until each has been reviewed and approved by F as consistent with the President’s policy.”
“No new funds shall be obligated for new awards or extensions of existing awards until each proposed new award or extension has been reviewed and approved by F as consistent with the President Trump’s agenda,” the memo reads.
F refers to the Office of Foreign Assistance, which coordinates U.S. foreign aid and provides strategic direction of USAID from the State Department.
The U.S. aid community has been waiting anxiously for additional guidance about Trump’s executive order on “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” which was issued Monday, the first day of his second term as president. The guidance issued on Friday struck some experts as a more disruptive and extreme version of what was expected.
“It causes chaos in the system. Globally,” a former senior USAID official told Devex.
“It effectively halts almost all foreign assistance. And sends USAID into a tailspin along with its partners,” they added.
A current senior USAID official told Devex that the guidance clearly puts the secretary of state “in the driver’s seat” in carrying out the review.
The memo — which was approved by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — directs that within 30 days the director of the policy planning staff at the State Department shall “develop appropriate review standards” to “ensure that all foreign assistance is aligned with President Trump’s foreign policy agenda and that data regarding all foreign assistance spending in the future is aggregated and inputted into a comprehensive internal Department repository.”
“Across the United States government, it is currently impossible to access sufficient information in one place to determine whether the foreign assistance policies and interests supported by appropriations are not duplicated, are effective, and are consistent with President Trump’s foreign policy,” it states.
Within 85 days of Friday’s memo, “the government-wide comprehensive review of all foreign assistance shall be completed, and a report shall be produced to the Secretary of State for his consideration and recommendation to the President,” it reads.
Friday’s memo notes that the secretary of state has approved several waivers to the foreign aid pause.
These relate to “foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt and administrative expenses, including salaries, necessary to administer foreign military financing;” “emergency food assistance and administrative expenses, including salaries, necessary to administer such assistance;” “on a temporary basis, salaries and related administrative expenses, including travel, for U.S. direct hire employees, personal services contractors, and locally employed staff;” “legitimate expenses incurred prior to the date of this ALDAC under existing awards or legitimate expenses associated with stop-work orders;” and “exceptions to the pause approved by the Director of Foreign Assistance.”
Notably absent from the waivers approved so far are critical global health programs such as PEPFAR, the U.S. flagship global HIV program.
“This is a halt to work that is saving lives around the world,” said Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, an advocacy group that works to ensure HIV patients have access to medicines.
“It’s cruel, it’s anti-science, it’s anti-human rights, and it’s completely unnecessary,” she said.
Not everyone was surprised by the stop-work order.
“They’ve been communicating this for quite a while,” said Olga Wall, a government procurement expert and CEO of Avallon Consulting. “I’m surprised that people are surprised.”
Wall said the impetus now is on global development organizations to help USAID defend their programs by tying them to President Trump’s foreign policy objectives — particularly since USAID is short-staffed.
“You have to be able to pull together as a community. We are not strangers to responding to emergencies. … Treat that as any other emergency and pull together all of your resources and your brain trusts to defend the programs that you believe in,” she said.
Source: Devex
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