The top Democrats on two congressional committees overseeing U.S. foreign aid spending wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday urging him to resume funding for ongoing U.S. foreign assistance programs.
Their letter comes in the wake of a cable from the State Department — first reported by Devex — that orders both new and current foreign aid programs to grind to a halt. That guidance builds on U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” issued on his first day in office.
The direction “to block all funding obligations and stop work on existing programs has immediate detrimental impacts, including possible closure of implementing partner organizations needed to carry out this work,” wrote Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Lois Frankel, a Democrat from Florida and ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs.
About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
