Following President Donald Trump’s day one promise to put America first, he signed an executive order on Monday placing a 90-day pause on foreign aid.
The pause is intended to allow various agency heads, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to determine whether different forms of foreign aid actually align with U.S. interests.
“The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and, in many cases, are antithetical to American values,” said the order.
“They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries,” it continued.
The order established a new policy for the Trump Administration.
“It is the policy of United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States,” it said.
The order applies to taxpayer funds being sent to foreign nations, foreign non-governmental organizations, and contractors.
The Secretary of State may, upon review of a spending program, decide to resume it before the end of the 90-day period.
The order does not specify any exceptions for the halt, though rumors have circulated suggesting that a few nations may continue to receive aid.
The Associated Press reported that three of the largest recipients of U.S. aid—Israel, receiving $3.3 billion per year; Jordan, receiving $1.7 billion; and Egypt, receiving $1.5 billion—will not see significant reductions in aid due to preexisting long-term treaties and aid packages.
The fate of Ukraine aid also remains unclear.
While the order does not specifically mention the nation, and Trump has not specified that they are exempt, Ukrainian sources were quick to claim that they would be unaffected by the order.
Head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, Andrii Kovalenko, without providing evidence to support his statement, posted on Telegram claiming that the order will not affect military aid for the war-torn country.
“The executive order signed by US President Trump suspending international aid for 90 days does NOT apply to military aid to Ukraine. This is all about other things,” said Kovalenko in a translation of a Ukrainian Telegram post.
A Ukrainian news outlet, Defense Express, made a similar claim, arguing that the order was phrased to only pause economic and development aid rather than the security assistance given to Ukraine.
Even if Defense Express is correctly interpreting the order, it could still apply to the billions in non-military aid sent to Ukraine to support its economy and infrastructure during its war with Russia.
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