There’s long been chatter that U.S. President Donald Trump will go after the nonprofits and philanthropies he believes are opposed to his agenda. That chatter is growing louder and louder.
Also in today’s edition: First, USAID. Now, is it the State Department’s turn? Plus, the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings kick off today. Will the bank’s agenda collide with Trump’s?
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In the U.S., 501(c)(3) tax status is a big deal. It exempts nonprofits and philanthropic foundations from some taxes and allows donors to claim tax deductions on their contributions.
It’s also being wielded as a political cudgel by Trump, who makes no secret of his contempt for organizations he views as progressive roadblocks to his agenda.
Hot on the heels of efforts to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status, Trump hinted that others may be in the firing line as well. That specifically includes organizations involved in climate change efforts, my colleague Jesse Chase-Lubitz reports. In fact, there’s speculation the president may issue an executive order on Tuesday — Earth Day — revoking the tax status of environmental groups. Beyond climate change, reports suggest that nonprofits and foundations engaged in social justice, immigration, and funding for organizations overseas could be targeted as well.
Though unconfirmed, some organizations are already bracing themselves, with one Gates Foundation-affiliated charity telling Devex it is removing “climate” and “climate change” from its programming and moving its money out of the United States.
The Council on Foundations, a nonprofit association, tells Devex there is a “high chance” that philanthropies “will be attacked by the current administration or Congress.” It has launched a petition calling for the protection of “our freedom to express ourselves” that has so far garnered the signatures of roughly 370 charitable-giving organizations.
One source tells Devex that this is “terrifying on any level, but particularly terrifying when you’re talking about the survival of our community.”
Read: Philanthropies fear Trump will target their tax-exempt status
The World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings kick off today (yes, it’s Easter, but the wheels of global finance grind on). We’ve got a team on the ground all week and in a few hours’ time, you’ll get a special newsletter previewing everything you need to know about the annual gathering.
Word is the meetings will be a slimmed-down affair this year, although hugely consequential questions still loom over them like storm clouds. The most ominous: Will he or won’t he?
In other words, will Trump withdraw from the World Bank? It would be a seismic shake-up, even potentially shifting the gravity of power from Washington to Beijing.
So far, no one’s panicking, on the outside at least — instead projecting calm while stressing that the bank benefits U.S. taxpayers and aligns with Trump’s “America First” priorities.
One potentially positive sign? U.S. Rep. French Hill, the Republican chairperson of the House Financial Services Committee and a key liaison for U.S. relations with the World Bank, told Devex during a recent Pro Briefing that he doesn’t believe the U.S. should pull out of the bank, in part because it would cede authority to “predatory” lenders such as China and Russia.
“Because part of ‘America First’ is taking policy decisions that allow our economy to grow, our citizens to thrive, America's leadership to be continued, to protect the status of the dollar as the reserve currency,” he told us. “They're all fundamental to, I think, the campaign of President Trump, but they have a multilateral dimension.”
That doesn’t mean that Hill is bubbling with praise for the bank. He said the anti-poverty lender should do just that — focus on poverty — and not expend so much effort on climate change.
“We've taken our eye off the ball if we're mentioning climate change 100 times, but not focusing on education and public health,” he said.
“A poor country that doesn't have power should not be denied a loan to access power through some nonrenewable source,” he added. “Here in the United States, we really focused on an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and that's the right way to go.”
World Bank President Ajay Banga also talked about an all-of-the-above energy strategy in remarks to reporters last week, a sign he could be trying to get on the same page as the administration.
“There is no reason why a country in Africa should not care about affordable, accessible electricity. It’s what we are trying to do … and it includes gas, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, wind and nuclear where it makes sense,” he said, pointedly leaving out oil.
Banga added that he’s having “constructive” talks with the Trump administration. “I don't know where it'll end, but I've got no problem with the dialogue I'm having. They're asking the right questions, and we're trying to give them the right answers.”
Read: US Congressman French Hill says World Bank is 'way off course' (Pro)
ICYMI: World Bank’s Ajay Banga defends climate strategy ahead of Spring Meetings
Listen: What can we expect from the World Bank Spring Meetings?
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A draft executive order circulating within the Trump administration proposes a sweeping overhaul of the State Department — including the near-total elimination of its Africa operations, mass embassy closures, and deep staffing cuts, according to a copy of the order obtained by Devex.
The cuts would amount to a “disciplined reorganization,” the document states, further cementing the country’s foreign policy transformation under Trump’s “America First” doctrine. To “streamline delivery” and slash “waste, fraud and abuse,” the draft would eliminate the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance, recently led by Peter Marocco.
It would also shutter the bulk of the State Department’s Africa operations; dissolve bureaus working on democracy, human rights, and refugees; and fire envoys focused on climate, HIV/AIDS, issues affecting Afghan women and girls, and women’s issues more broadly, among a slew of other cuts. “Limited humanitarian functions,” the draft states, would be transferred to the Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs — the name of a bureau once housed by USAID.
“All changes contained within this Order shall be implemented with aggressive speed, clarity, and resolve,” the document states. “The Department shall complete full structural reorganization and transition no later than October 1, 2025.”
It’s not clear who wrote the document, or whether the draft executive order will become reality. But after the story was first reported by The New York Times, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio weighed in on social media, calling the article “fake news.” The account run by the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Republican majority echoed his claims almost immediately.
“Liberals are so obsessed with maintaining the rot in the State Department that they make up lies out of whole cloth to prevent necessary reform,” the committee posted on social media platform X.
200
—That’s the number of cardboard coffins that protesters laid out in front of the U.S. State Department, each representing 100,000 people who were once supported by PEPFAR, the U.S. global AIDS initiative, until Trump froze funding to all U.S. foreign aid programs in January.
Since that freeze, over 40,000 people are estimated to have died from the loss of antiretroviral drugs alone, my colleague Elissa Miolene writes. That includes nearly 4,000 children, according to the Boston University-supported PEPFAR Impact Tracker.
In theory, PEPFAR programs should have been exempt from the freeze. But in practice, it’s been a mess. Waivers haven’t always been granted. Programs and key personnel have been cut. And the organization coordinating the bulk of PEPFAR’s financial awards — USAID — has been almost entirely dismantled.
“We’re about halfway through the fiscal year, and almost no appropriated PEPFAR funds are getting out the door,” says Asia Russell of the advocacy group Health GAP. “So we’ve brought the dead to [Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s] door.”
Read: AIDS activists pile coffins outside State Dept. to protest PEPFAR cuts
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The Israeli military has admitted “professional failures, breaches of orders” led to the death of 15 aid workers in Gaza and has dismissed the deputy commander responsible. [The Guardian]
Descendants of enslaved people and slave owners in the Caribbean discussed reparations for the first time at a meeting at the U.N. headquarters last week. [The Independent]
Attacks on the Zamzam and Abu Shouk displaced persons camps in Sudan have forced an estimated 400,000 to 450,000 people to flee to areas that are far from basic services and aid. [UN News]
Update, April 22, 2025: This article has been updated to clarify that U.S. Rep. French Hill is the Republican chairperson of the House Financial Services Committee.
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