A USAID team lead in the Middle East and North Africa region has called on diplomats, aid workers, and U.S. State Department staffers to “refuse to comply” with the Trump administration’s stop-work order.
“We must refuse to be ordered to throw our oaths of office in the trash by an unelected oligarch or his cronies,” the team lead said in a speech to internal staff, referring to Elon Musk who heads the Department of Government Efficiency.
“Collective refusal is the most lawful and ethical course of action,” they added.
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About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
