State Department directive pauses most US foreign aid spending
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days.
A copy of the directive that Politico obtained requires State Department staffers to immediately issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards.” President Donald Trump on Jan.
20 issued an executive order that paused U.S. foreign aid “for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.” “All department and agency heads with responsibility for United States foreign development assistance programs shall immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds to foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors pending reviews of such programs for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy, to be conducted within 90 days of this order,” it reads. “The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) shall enforce this pause through its apportionment authority.” Politico reported Rubio’s directive is more expansive than the executive order, although it does not stop military aid to Egypt and Israel, emergency food assistance and “legitimate expenses incurred prior to the date of this.” The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy.
The decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations was one of the previous White House’s priorities in these efforts.
