US Freezes Almost All Foreign Aid Except Food, Arms Assistance For Israel, Egypt What Is The Global Impact?
Date
1/24/2025 10:14:38 PM
(MENAFN- Live Mint) The United States froze virtually all foreign aid on Friday, making exceptions only for emergency food, and military funding for Israel and Egypt. The US is said to be the world's biggest donor.
The new development was revealed in an internal memo sent by Secretary of State Marco Rubio , days after US President Donald Trum took office vowing an "America First " policy of tightly restricting assistance overseas, AFP reported.
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The memo, seen by the AFP, stated,“No new funds shall be obligated for new awards or extensions of existing awards until each proposed new award or extension has been reviewed and approved.”
How will this impact?
The order appears to affect everything from development assistance to military aid - including to Ukraine , which received billions of dollars in weapons under Trump's predecessor Joe Biden as it tries to repel a Russian invasion.
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The directive also means a pause of at least several months of US funding for PEPFAR, the anti-HIV/AIDS initiative that buys anti-retroviral drugs to treat the disease in developing countries, largely in Africa.
Launched under president George W. Bush in 2003 , PEPFAR is credited with saving some 26 million lives and until recently enjoyed broad popular support along partisan lines in Washington.
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As per the report, the memo explicitly made exceptions for military assistance to Israel and Egypt . Israel's longstanding major arms packages from the US have expanded further since the Gaza war. Meanwhile, Egypt has received generous US defense funding since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
Rubio also made an exception for US contributions to emergency food assistance , which the United States has been contributing following crises around the world including in Sudan and Syria.
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