By Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk
GUATEMALA CITY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday the Trump administration was reaching out to U.S. Agency for International Development missions overseas to identify and designate programs that will be exempted from the sweeping stop-work orders.
Late on Monday, the administration said it would put on leave all directly hired employees of USAID globally and recall thousands of personnel working overseas, after President Donald Trump ordered a broad freeze on most U.S. foreign aid last month.
Trump and his aides say they want to ensure that billions of dollars in U.S. assistance, including humanitarian aid distributed around the world, is aligned with his “America First” policy. He tasked billionaire Elon Musk, who has accused USAID of being a criminal organization without providing evidence, with scaling down the agency.
Since Trump’s freeze on Jan. 20, stop-work orders halted much of the agency’s aid worldwide and hundreds of contractors were laid off. But Monday’s announcement listed some exceptions that included “specially designated programs.”
“That language is deliberate, because we are now going to have to work … to identify which programs should be specifically designated and therefore exempted from that order,” Rubio told a press conference in Guatemala City.
The criteria for exemptions will be whether or not a program furthers U.S. national interests and is aligned with them. “And those that do not will not continue,” Rubio added.
He repeated his accusation that USAID staff were not cooperating with the administration’s efforts to find out more about the programs, but said that State Department staff working on similar programs were providing insight to the administration.
“At State Department … we got a really good insight, and that’s why, every single day, we are issuing waivers on the State Department programs,” Rubio said. He did not detail what those waivers were.
Emergency food assistance was not included in the broad freeze of foreign aid. Rubio on January 28 issued an additional waiver for life-saving assistance and laid out criteria for what would qualify.
But the lack of detail in Trump’s order and the ensuing waivers have left aid groups confused as to whether their work can continue.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that the United States has stopped purchases for foreign food aid programs despite a waiver for food assistance.
The freeze in purchases of wheat, soybeans and other commodities produced by U.S. farmers could hinder or halt the operations of organizations that provide millions of tons of food each year to help alleviate poverty in countries such as Madagascar, Tanzania and Honduras, the sources said.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Rod Nickel)
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