Trump administration says it's cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid
contracts
 [February 27, 2025]
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, MARK SHERMAN and MATTHEW LEE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said it is eliminating more
than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s foreign aid
contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world,
putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S.
development and humanitarian help abroad.
The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID
projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles
with the administration.
The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo
obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal
lawsuits Wednesday.
The Supreme Court intervened in that case late Wednesday and temporarily
blocked a court order requiring the administration to release billions
of dollars in foreign aid by midnight.
Wednesday's disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the
administration's retreat from U.S. aid and development assistance
overseas, and from decades of U.S. policy that foreign aid helps U.S.
interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building
alliances.
The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from
decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID
and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use
taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”
President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder
and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of
the federal government. Both men say USAID projects advance a liberal
agenda and are a waste of money.
Trump on Jan. 20 ordered what he said would be a 90-day
program-by-program review of which foreign assistance programs deserved
to continue, and cut off all foreign assistance funds almost overnight.
The funding freeze has stopped thousands of U.S.-funded programs abroad,
and the administration and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency
teams have pulled the majority of USAID staff off the job through forced
leave and firings.
Widely successful USAID programs credited with containing outbreaks of
Ebola and other threats and saving more than 20 million lives in Africa
through HIV and AIDS treatment are among those still cut off from agency
funds, USAID officials and officials with partner organizations say.
Meanwhile, formal notifications of program cancellations are rolling
out.
In the federal court filings Wednesday, nonprofits owed money on
contracts with USAID describe both Trump political appointees and
members of Musk's teams terminating USAID's contracts around the world
at breakneck speed, without time for any meaningful review, they say.
"'There are MANY more terminations coming, so please gear up!''' a USAID
official wrote staff Monday, in an email quoted by lawyers for the
nonprofits in the filings.
The nonprofits, among thousands of contractors, owed billions of dollars
in payment since the freeze began, called the en masse contract
terminations a maneuver to get around complying with the order to lift
the funding freeze temporarily.
So did a Democratic lawmaker.
[to top of second column]
|
U.S. Capitol Police surround demonstrators as they protest against
cuts to American foreign aid spending, including USAID and the
PEPFAR program to combat HIV/AIDS, at the Cannon House Office
Building on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The administration was attempting to "blow through Congress and the
courts by announcing the completion of their sham ‘review’ of foreign
aid and the immediate termination of thousands of aid programs all over
the world,” said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
A coalition representing major U.S. and global businesses and
nongovernmental organizations and former officials expressed shock at
the move. “The American people deserve a transparent accounting of what
will be lost — on counterterror, global health, food security, and
competition,” the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition said.
The State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had reviewed
the terminations.
In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200
multiyear USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100
of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of
$4.4 billion.
The State Department memo, which was first reported by the Washington
Free Beacon, described the administration as spurred by a federal court
order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the
Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding.
“In response, State and USAID moved rapidly,” targeting USAID and State
Department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract
terminations, the memo said.
Trump administration officials — after repeated warnings from the
federal judge in the case — also said Wednesday they were finally
beginning to send out their first or any payments after more than a
month with no known spending. Officials were processing a few million
dollars of back payments, officials said, owed to U.S. and international
organizations and companies.
But U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali's order to unfreeze billions of
dollars by midnight Wednesday will remain on hold until the Supreme
Court has a chance to weigh in more fully, according to the brief order
signed by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Ali had ordered the federal government to comply with his decision
temporarily blocking a freeze on foreign aid, ruling in a lawsuit filed
by nonprofit groups and businesses. An appellate panel refused the
administration’s request to intervene before the high court weighed in.
The plaintiffs have until noon Friday to respond, Roberts said.
The administration has filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in
one other case so far, arguing that a lower court was wrong to reinstate
the head of a federal watchdog agency after Trump fired him.
___
Associated Press writers Gary Fields in Washington and Rebecca Boone in
Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
