It was easy to miss amid last week’s barrage of executive orders, but on his first day in office, President Donald Trump halted all new disbursements of foreign development aid for 90 days. The pause was intended to give the White House time to review development assistance for efficiency and whether it “aligned” with his “America First” foreign policy. That was troubling enough, but, on Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the directive much further, issuing an immediate order to cease not only development aid but nearly all current foreign aid programs around the globe.
The “stop-work” order in the directive has carveouts for emergency food aid, as well as military assistance to Israel and Egypt. But everything else has been put on ice. Work to prevent current outbreaks of mpox and Marburg virus from spreading beyond Africa, for example. Drug supplies that are keeping 20 million people living with HIV alive, including more than a half million children. Support for religious minorities in the Middle East and those risking their lives to resist oppressive political regimes in places like Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Burma. Combatting the spread of fentanyl across the western hemisphere. Work to support allies and partners in Asia to build resilience in the face of coercive economic practices by China. And military assistance to allies such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Poland, and Ukraine.
The United States funds all of this, and far more, for just 1 cent of every dollar that Americans pay in taxes each year. Halting it, even just temporarily, will have obvious, predictable results: Children will die. Our national security will erode. America’s alliances will suffer. U.S. partners will be at risk. And America’s enemies will rejoice.
In halting foreign assistance spending, the Trump administration has just put America last, while handing a gift to our biggest adversaries, notably China. In fact, Trump may just have conceded great power competition with China before his first week in office was even over – though it is not too late to reverse this spiral.
To be clear, every administration has a right and an obligation to review the money America spends around the world. And, having occupied senior positions in overseeing foreign assistance, I can attest that there are better and more efficient ways to manage and distribute it. A serious review of how the United States conducts foreign assistance and how its institutions are aligned to integrate diplomacy, development, and defense is well in order.
But there are smart ways to conduct reviews and pursue reform — ways that preserve America’s influence and interests — and then there is the catastrophic path that the Trump administration appears to be pursuing now. The relevant section of the State Department directive, states:
Effective immediately, Assistant Secretaries and Senior Bureau Officials shall ensure that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance until such time as the Secretary shall determine, following a review. 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. Decisions whether to continue, modify, or terminate programs will be made following this review.
To be clear, there is no such thing as a temporary pause. When an NGO, a small business, or an American company that receives U.S. government funding to implement U.S. foreign assistance is told to stop work, even for 90 days, that means people are fired, expertise is lost, and programs are shut down with no guarantee they’ll start back up, even if they survive the review. It is difficult to exaggerate the reverberating effects of a stop-work order on the ability of such organizations and their programs to continue to function. We know that already, many development assistance partners and international organizations have begun layoffs — including jobs here in the United States — though at least some have reportedly been told by the Trump administration not to publicly talk about those impacts.
Nor will the suspension itself save U.S. taxpayers money. The U.S. government knows from prior experience that the cost of suspending and restarting programs like these far exceeds the cost of simply pivoting resources to new priorities.
Unless it is reversed, this shocking halt, especially with the ramifications of the stop-work order, may represent an extraordinary setback for the United States.
Why? Because foreign assistance, though charitable, isn’t charity. It’s a strategic investment that safeguards America’s most important interests while reflecting its highest values. It protects the United States from threats abroad before they reach America’s shores, from diseases to fentanyl to terrorism. It helps to combat human trafficking, supports democratic elections, and stems the flow of migration, attacking the root causes that force people to flee. It helps secure critical supply chains and builds markets for U.S. exports while creating jobs at home. And in an era of strategic competition, foreign aid wins influence and allies.
That’s why foreign assistance has long been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, seen by both parties as crucial to securing America’s national interests. Programs like the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II demonstrated how aid could secure alliances, rebuild shattered countries, and foster free societies and free markets. And prosperity in post-war Europe helped drive America’s own prosperity at home. As Senator Lindsey Graham recently said, when it comes to competing with China in Africa and elsewhere with U.S. foreign aid, “soft power is a critical component of defending America and our values.”
Few understand this better than the PRC. Since its inception in 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has poured more than $1 trillion into infrastructure projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, bolstering its global influence. For instance, China has financed massive infrastructure projects in Africa, including the construction of railways in Kenya and ports in Djibouti, giving Beijing significant sway over governments there while creating footholds in a region of strategic importance to the United States. The U.S. suspension of foreign aid now threatens to effectively leave the field wide open for China to expand its influence – and, ironically, to paint Beijing as a better and more reliable partner than Washington.
Russia, too, may seek to exploit the vacuum created by the U.S. retreat from foreign assistance. In Central and Latin America, Russia has funded multi-pronged information-manipulation campaigns meant to sow division and spread anti-U.S. sentiment. In Africa, Russia is shipping arms and wreaking havoc in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Central African Republic, and has targeted U.S. health initiatives.
And of course, this State Department pause imperils Ukraine. Not only is military assistance threatened, but so too is incredible work the United States has led to safeguard and rebuild Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and agricultural sector after years of Russian attacks.
No matter how the review ends, this suspension of foreign assistance and its stop-work order has already caused lasting damage. And with a decision this reckless, it’s difficult to know whether it was made out of ignorance or intent. But it is not too late for the Trump administration to reverse course — to conduct their review but to lift the stop-work order. Otherwise, the damage of these actions will have generational consequences, both for the communities abroad that the United States is abandoning and for the values and interests of the American people.
Editor’s note: This piece is part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions