1 week ago
9
Staff on hundreds of foreign aid projects left in limbo by the Trump administration’s funding freeze have received a survey that asks them to justify their work under an eccentric list of criteria that meet the White House’s new national security priorities.
The survey, copies of which have been obtained by the Guardian, asks foreign aid programme staff to detail whether they contribute to limiting illegal immigration or securing US borders, “combatting Christian prosecution”,and whether they help the US secure access to rare earth minerals.
It also includes a litmus test on several controversial issues banned under the Trump administration. “Can you confirm this is not a climate or ‘environmental justice’ project or include such elements? [yes/no],” the survey asks. It also asks: “Can you confirm that this is no DEI [diversity, equality and inclusion] project or DEI elements of the project? [yes /no].”
The questionnaire, which was distributed eight weeks after the US president issued a foreign aid funding freeze, comes as thousands of projects have already laid off staff and cut ties with local partners, meaning that even if stop-work orders are lifted the programmes may remain shuttered.
The administration has claimed that it has restored funding for life-saving programmes and has developed a rigorous criteria for reviewing all foreign aid spending. But staff have described a chaotic process or a complete lack of communication with USAid and State Department officials meant to review their programmes.
A report in Propublica, an investigative website, cited current and former officials who said that the USAid acting head, Peter Marocco, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, cut critical programmes without consulting contract officers, who have oversight of individual projects and are aid groups’ primary contacts.
The memos also came after the supreme court issued a ruling against the Trump administration’s freeze on nearly $2bn in foreign aid. Some of the stop-work orders projects had received in late January began to be lifted on Thursday evening in the first indication that the administration is complying with the court’s order, at least for now.
But administrators for programmes remain confused about the criteria that will be used to review their programmes in future. “We might not file the questionnaire now [because] we’re worried it will be incriminating in some way,” said the head of one programme that had its stop-work order lifted on Thursday. “Lots of [organisations] aren’t doing it anyway.”
The questionnaire is an unvarnished look at the administration’s priorities for foreign aid under Trump’s mantra of “America First”.
One question asks whether organisations work with “communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?”
Another asks whether “this project reinforce US sovereignty by limiting reliance on international organizations or global governance structures (eg UN, WHO)?” It also asks whether organisations have received any funding from Russia, China, Cuba or Iran.
after newsletter promotion
Politico, which first reported on the survey, said on Wednesday that the state department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor had launched a review of its foreign assistance projects.
USAid had sent out a shorter version of the questionnaire that did not mention DEI, transgender or climate-related projects, the outlet reported.
A series of memos written by Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for global health at USAid, estimated that the decision to cut foreign aid and dismantle USAid would lead to 1 million children not being treated each year for severe acute malnutrition, which is often fatal, as well as 18m additional cases of malaria and 200,000 children paralysed with polio annually.
