Cnn
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The US State Department has frozen almost all foreign aid in the world in force immediately a few days after President Donald Trump published a decree on Monday to suspend such assistance for 90 days.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a cable, seen by CNN, to all the American diplomatic positions on Friday describing this decision, which threatens billions of dollars in funding from the State Department and the American Development Agency International (USAID) for programs around the world.
Foreign aid was the target of the ire of the Republicans in the Congress and officials of the Trump administration, but the funding represents little of the overall American budget. The extent of the decree and the subsequent cable left humanitarian officials in shock.
The cable provides for immediate “Stop Work” orders on existing foreign assistance and pauses a new help. During the coming month, the cable said, the administration will develop standards for an examination of the question of whether the assistance is “aligned with the foreign policy of President Trump”.
“The decisions to continue, modify or terminate programs will be made as a result of this exam,” said the cable, noting that such an exam should be completed within 85 days.
The order of the State Department provides a waiver of emergency food assistance as well as foreign military funding for Israel and Egypt. The cable does not specifically mention other countries which receive foreign military funding such as Ukraine or Taiwan.
A humanitarian official said that the break was incredibly disruptive and said that cable details were “as bad as possible.”
Another official told CNN that even if they expected that there were cuts or changes to the assistance to specific areas, they did not expect such a radical and immediate break. They said that humanitarian needs around the world are acute and a freeze in the help of the United States – the world’s largest humanitarian donor – could be harmful.
In his decree, Trump said that “the foreign aid industry and bureaucracy and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many antithetical cases on American values”.
However, one of the officials noted that assistance programs, such as those related to global health, which are targeted by the freezing, are in the interest of the United States and had benefited from bipartite support.
“Make sure that there are no pandemics is in our interest. World stability is in our interest, “they said.