The US has dramatically cut the budgets of overseas development and aid programs, with multi-year contracts pared down by 92 percent, or US$54 billion, the US Department of State said on Wednesday.
On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid for 90 days. The pause aimed to allow the administration to review overseas spending with an eye to gutting programs not aligned with Trump’s “America first” agenda.
The review in part targeted multi-year foreign assistance contracts awarded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with the vast majority eliminated during its course.
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“At the conclusion of a process led by USAID leadership, including tranches personally reviewed by [US] Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio, nearly 5,800 awards with US$54 billion in value remaining were identified for elimination as part of the America First — a 92 percent reduction,” a state department spokesperson said in a statement.
The review also looked at more than 9,100 grants involving foreign assistance, valued at more than US$15.9 billion. At the conclusion of the review, 4,100 grants worth almost US$4.4 billion were targeted to be eliminated, a 28 percent reduction.
“These commonsense eliminations will allow the bureaus, along with their contracting and grants officers, to focus on remaining programs, find additional efficiencies and tailor subsequent programs more closely to the administration’s America first priorities,” the state department said.
Programs that were not cut included food assistance, life-saving medical treatments for diseases like HIV and malaria, and support for countries including Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Lebanon, among others, the spokesperson said.
On Tuesday, a federal judge gave the Trump administration less than two days to unfreeze all aid, after a previous court order issued nearly two weeks earlier went ignored.
The Trump administration filed a petition to put a hold on the lower-court order, which was granted by US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts late on Wednesday, US media reported.
USAID, created after a bill passed by the US Congress in 1961, had a workforce of more than 10,000 employees prior to the freeze, which sparked shock and dismay among personnel.
The agency announced on Sunday that it was laying off 1,600 of its employees in the US and placing most of the remaining staff on administrative leave.
During his election campaign, Trump promised to slash federal government spending and bureaucracy, a task he bestowed upon his top donor and close adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, as part of the newly created US Department of Government Efficiency.
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