US Orders Freeze of New Funding for Nearly All Foreign Aid Programmes

*Stops issuing gender-neutral ‘X’ passports under Trump’s order

United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has sent an order to all US diplomatic and consular posts instructing a pause on “all new obligations of funding, pending a review, for foreign assistance programmes funded by or through the Department and USAID.”

This is just as the country has also ceased issuing passports with a gender-neutral “X” option, the State Department said, following President Donald Trump’s order limiting government recognition of transgender identity.

The message was in line with the executive order President Trump signed on Monday to re-evaluate US foreign aid.
The order threatens billions of dollars of funding from the State Department and USAID for programmes worldwide.

The order said that across the US government, “it is currently impossible to access sufficient information in one place to determine whether the foreign assistance policies and interests supported by appropriations are not duplicated, are effective, and are consistent with President Trump’s foreign policy.”

Rubio’s order went on to say that the State Department “needs a centralised repository from which senior Department, USAID officials, Ambassadors, missions and others can draw sufficiently detailed information from which the Secretary can make judgments.”
 It added: “Further guidance regarding a new or updated repository and mandatory bureau submissions to it will be forthcoming.”

Under Rubio’s order, there is an 85-day deadline for a “government-wide comprehensive review of all foreign assistance” to be completed, and, it stated, “a report shall be produced to the Secretary of State for his consideration and recommendation to the President.”

The order also appears to impact current existing aid programmes, stating, “for existing foreign assistance awards, contracting officers and grant officers shall immediately issue stop-work orders, consistent with the terms of the relevant award, until such time as the Secretary shall determine, following a review.”

However, Rubio indicated that US foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt were exempted from the order, as well as emergency food assistance and “salaries and related administrative expenses, including travel, for US direct hire employees, personal services contractors, and locally employed staff.”

It is not immediately clear how the order will impact US foreign aid to Ukraine and other countries.
However, one of the officials noted that assistance programmes, such as those related to global health, which are targeted by the freeze, are in the US’ interest and had enjoyed bipartisan support.

“Making sure there are no pandemics is in our interest. Global stability is in our interest,” they said.
Democratic Reps. Gregory Meeks of New York and Lois Frankel of Florida said in a letter on Friday to Rubio that programmes that appear affected by the freeze such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) “depend on an uninterrupted supply of medicines.”

PEPFAR and PMI were launched by Republican President George W. Bush and have long enjoyed bipartisan support.
They added that people around the world — such as in conflict-ridden Gaza, Sudan, Haiti and Ukraine — rely on the continued flow of aid from the United States.

The International AIDS Society warned yesterday that halting PEPFAR would place millions of lives in jeopardy. IAS President Beatriz Grinsztejn said in a statement: “This is a matter of life or death. PEPFAR provides lifesaving antiretrovirals for more than 20 million people — and stopping its funding essentially stops their HIV treatment. If that happens, people are going to die and HIV will resurge.”

Meanwhile, the US has also ceased issuing passports with a gender-neutral “X” option, the State Department said, following President Trump’s order limiting government recognition of transgender identity.
The move rolls back the option first introduced under former President Joe Biden’s administration and leaves an unknown number of people awaiting further guidance on the fate of their pending applications and already issued passports.

Trump, shortly after taking office on Monday, signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to only give the option of male or female, as part of an array of actions aimed at quickly reversing policies enacted by his predecessor.

“In line with that Order, the Department’s issuance of US passports will reflect the individual’s biological sex as defined in the Executive Order,” a US State Department spokesperson said Friday night.
The spokesperson said the department “is no longer issuing US passports with X markers” and has “suspended processing of all applications seeking a different sex marker than that defined by the terms in the Executive Order.”

“Guidance regarding previously issued X sex marker passports is forthcoming,” the spokesperson added, saying updates will be posted on the department’s travel website.