Trump administration extends foreign aid review for another 30 days

At the end of March, the Trump administration told the U.S. Congress that its foreign aid review was complete. Now, it seems like the government has backtracked — with an internal email from the State Department stating the review has been extended for another 30 days. “With our additional time, we will work on doing another round of bureau feedback and get recommendations up to S and then over to [the Office of Management and Budget],” said Jeremy Lewin, the new director of foreign assistance at the State Department, referring to the secretary of state. “The timeline should now fit nicely with the budget proposal and better reflect the fact that, in view of the rapid S review of USAID and State [foreign aid] programs in February, the [foreign assistance review] is now more of a prospective budgetary document.” President Donald Trump announced his foreign aid review the day he stepped into the White House. That review — and the corresponding freeze on foreign assistance — was meant to last 90 days, meaning it would have concluded on April 20, 2025. But for weeks, the administration has said that the review was complete, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio stating that its purge of programs had been finished after six weeks. “After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID,” Rubio posted on the social media platform X on March 10. “The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.” Now, it’s unclear whether Lewin’s extended review will result in additional cuts or just the opposite, as the State Department did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. But after weeks of upheaval in Washington, just 898 grants and contracts from the U.S. Agency for International Development had survived the cull — less than 15% of the agency’s portfolio before Trump’s return. That’s according to a document sent to Capitol Hill in late March, which referred to the “conclusion of USAID’s full-scope review of its programming,” and listed the programs it had killed and kept across 281 pages. “This update reflects USAID’s ongoing efforts to manage its resources efficiently while fulfilling its mission to continue to provide life-saving and strategic aid assistance worldwide,” stated the document, dated March 24. But Lewin’s email isn’t the first time the Trump administration has cut programs beyond those it told Congress about. Just last week, a slew of additional programs previously tagged to survive the aid cuts were canceled, the majority of which provided lifesaving food assistance in conflict zones. Days later, Rubio tweeted that under his direction, the State Department had canceled another 139 programs on the congressional “active” list. And today, Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters they were “continuing to review the Department’s global posture and programs to ensure that they serve U.S. interests.” “That review is like Jason in Friday the 13th,” one former USAID official told Devex over text message. “Just when it’s been killed (again) it jumps out of the water.”