Republicans and Democrats alike have long recognized the importance of foreign aid to U.S. national security. In 2017, for example, then-Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, argued, “Foreign Aid is not charity. We must make sure it is well spent, but it is less than 1% of [the federal government’s] budget and critical to our national security.” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is a historically strong proponent of foreign aid, has said, “Foreign assistance is an insurance policy. Investing over there, even though we have needs here, makes us safer.” Just last year, Senators Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, and Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, introduced a bipartisan bill, “Fully Funding Our National Security Priorities Act,” to “empower” the State Department and USAID “as key national security agencies.” As then-President Ronald Reagan said in 1981, “Our national interests are inextricably tied to the security and development of our friends and allies.”
President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order putting a “90-day pause” on foreign aid and his administration’s subsequent systematic dismantling of the foreign aid apparatus, has been nothing short of chaotic and staggering in its wholesale disruption and cost to U.S. interests, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). U.S. foreign assistance to the MENA region has been an integral policy tool that supports the “safety, strength, and prosperity” of the United States, what now-Secretary of State Rubio has identified in this administration as the key components of Trump’s America First agenda.
While each president has the authority and responsibility to review U.S. foreign assistance and ensure that the assistance advances national interests, the Trump administration has acted recklessly and punitively. It required that all implementing partners and foreign governments immediately stop all work, with almost no exceptions; it has now begun to terminate hundreds of programs; and it is seeking to dramatically reduce the number of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staff from more than 10,000 worldwide to only 611, with possibly as few as 21 individuals working on the entire Middle East and North Africa. A U.S. District Judge yesterday extended an earlier temporary restraining order to stall a small portion of the personnel moves, and a separate federal judge ordered the administration to temporarily lift the aid freeze in response to one of a number or lawsuits by nonprofit and for-profit USAID contractors and NGOs accusing the Trump administration for “grievous irreparable harm” over the freeze. Despite the federal court order on the personnel actions, however, USAID employees were still denied entry to their offices in Washington, which has been closed and the sign removed, and USAID’s inspector general was fired after he released a report warning that the dismantling of the agency impacts its ability to carry out critical oversight such as preventing diversion of humanitarian aid to terrorist groups.
If the administration was legitimately interested in reform, it could have pursued this goal in a strategic, more cost-effective, and less disruptive manner. Continuing the overly broad freeze, stop-work orders (SWO), and destruction of USAID, however, poses significant threats, in both the short term and long term, to vital U.S. national security interests in the MENA.
While there are legitimate concerns about how to advance foreign aid programs amid shifting priorities, and how to operate cost-efficiently and transparently, there has been overwhelming bipartisan agreement that foreign aid is a critical and necessary component of U.S. foreign policy. (USAID’s website provided extensive documentation of aid programs and goals, but it has been taken offline as part of the agency’s dismantling. Some data remains available – at least for now — on a different government website focused on foreign assistance writ large.)
1 Percent of the Federal Budget
For Fiscal Year 2023, Congress appropriated about $40 billion to the State Department and USAID for foreign aid, distributed to partner governments, civil society, and international institutions — less than one penny for every federal dollar spent. Of that, MENA countries received approximately $5.5 billion in security assistance, $2.1 billion in economic assistance, and nearly $2 billion in humanitarian assistance. U.S. assistance to MENA has long-been overly focused on providing partners with U.S. arms, with a dubious track record. Despite the broad freeze, one of the few exceptions immediately granted, even in the executive order itself, was for military aid to continue unimpeded for Israel ($3.8 billion annually) and Egypt ($1.3 billion annually). That, too, has been accompanied by new major arms sales announcements for each country.
But billions more in programs across the region are still on hold, affecting critical humanitarian aid; support for economic growth that helps open markets for U.S. businesses; security assistance strengthening the capacity of partner countries to defend themselves; and programs helping civil society build capacity and foreign governments improve ministries and other agencies that are crucial for long-term development and stability.
While it seems clear the Trump administration does not have the legal authority to permanently freeze foreign aid or dismantle USAID without an act of Congress, this chaos has already had severe consequences in the MENA region. Stop-work orders have disrupted critical aid deliveries of food and medicine. Senator Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, appealed to Rubio to distribute $340 million worth of American-grown food that was intended to relieve hunger in places like Yemen but was stuck in ports. But even after that order was reversed a week later, the disruptions to the USAID workforce risk food spoiling or being stolen before it can be delivered. In Sudan, amid a war and humanitarian crisis, U.S.-funded medical facilities were forced to break the stop-work order to ensure that up to 100 children received life-saving medical care.
The foreign assistance freeze has also disrupted security assistance to strategic partners in the region. The Trump administration, for example, expended diplomatic effort to extend the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, but its suspension of U.S. equipment and training hinders the ability of Lebanese security forces to expand its operations to secure southern Lebanon, a critical component of the deal. In Northeast Syria, U.S.-funded prison guards reportedly did not show up to work when they were told about the stop-work order, risking a mass prison break of the 9,500 Islamic State fighters being held there, until a waiver was issued the next day. The reckless, abrupt, and unnecessary freeze almost immediately disrupted key programs that save lives, support regional stability, and advance other key U.S. interests.
And there’s more. Cutting off the more than $2 billion in economic assistance to the MENA region risks disrupting recoveries of close U.S. partners after years of hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the widespread ramifications of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and long-standing government repression, corruption, and mismanagement. It risks worsening the migration crisis, which could heighten existing social and political tensions in the MENA region and Europe. And it risks exacerbating anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and North Africa, where U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza has already decimated the United States’s reputation.
Undermining U.S. Efforts
These costs are not theoretical. Hezbollah is reportedly reestablishing clinics in southern Lebanon for people who had been receiving support from nonprofits funded by U.S. assistance, complicating the country’s attempt to overcome its economic and political crisis. Iranians are losing access to U.S.-funded VPNs that are critical to acquiring and sharing information that is censored by the Iranian government, strengthening the regime’s grip on the population. Iraqis trying to overcome years of conflict have seen reconstruction and rehabilitation programs halted, risking a resurgence of instability that could force more people to flee their homes.
The freeze also undermines U.S. credibility and soft power. The overwhelming majority of U.S. aid programs in the region are executed through consultation or coordination with the recipient government or provide direct support to the foreign government. These programs are not forced on unwilling partners. In fact, this freeze affects their citizens’ livelihoods and their own ability to govern more effectively. The freeze, for example, is hugely destabilizing for Jordan, particularly as Trump threatens to forcibly and permanently displace some Palestinians in Gaza to Jordan. The country relies on $845 million in direct budget support provided annually, hundreds of millions more for development programs that target a myriad of issues such as maternal and infant health, and more than $400 million in security assistance. While U.S. relationships with the countries of the region can be expected to persist amid fluctuations in foreign assistance, these sudden stop-work orders without due consideration and care signal to partners that the U.S. government is an erratic, impulsive, and fundamentally unreliable partner.
Even when the administration has issued waivers, it has come with chaos. Rubio announced a waiver for life-saving humanitarian aid, for example, but aid organizations are still by and large unable to get clarification on whether or not they can continue their work. In part, this is because USAID officials are “prohibited from communicating with the aid organizations” and are now being put on leave and forced to leave posts overseas. Instead of working to resolve the problem, Rubio has baselessly suggested that aid organizations are either incompetent or “deliberately sabotaging” the waiver process, denying the reality of the convoluted process to receive a waiver and risks associated with mistakenly violating the waiver.
In fact, as the lawsuit filed by the USAID contractors against Trump, Rubio and other top officials on Feb. 11 outlines, “Although the Rubio Memo purported to freeze only “new obligations,” Defendants have in fact acted to abruptly halt the overwhelming majority of disbursements to USAID and State Department partners even for existing grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts. Such partners remain totally cut off from federal funds, including funds appropriated in fiscal year 2023 or earlier and payments for work already performed, even where the Department of State has purported to issue a waiver.”
False Claims of Fraud and Abuse
The Trump administration initially framed the freeze as necessary in order to end superfluous and wasteful spending. In the days following the decision, the administration spread misinformation about U.S. aid programs, falsely claiming that the U.S. was spending $50 million to send condoms to Gaza. Even Elon Musk, who has been at the center of the administration’s assault on USAID, acknowledged the claim was untrue. Rubio has also asserted the freeze is necessary to ensure that aid agencies and recipients cooperate in reporting on their activities. Already the administration has claimed, without any evidence, that it has “prevented” more than $1 billion in foreign aid “not aligned with an America First agenda” from being expended.
The administration could have carried out a judicious review of foreign aid without a stop-work order. This would have ensured that there were not any costly disruptions and saved U.S. taxpayers money in the long run. It could have worked with foreign governments and implementing partners to facilitate a smooth transition away from programs the administration sought to discontinue, instead of risking national security and U.S. credibility by recklessly issuing a blanket pause.
Even now, the Trump administration could reverse course and allow work to resume. It could actively engage Congress to finalize FY2025 funding before a March 14 deadline, and focus on its budget request for FY2026. If the administration wants to entirely revamp U.S. foreign aid, it should work with Congress to do so legally, rather than implementing a stop-work order and carrying out a costly shuttering of USAID.