Goats and Soda : NPR

The Trump administration is terminating thousands of USAID foreign assistance grants and awards, according to the State Department. The move effectively guts the six-decade-old agency.

The announcement came just hours before a federal district court deadline for the Trump administration to restart payments on those grants. The government still owes more than $1 billion for work done before Trump’s foreign aid freeze. But late Wednesday the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to vacate the lower court order to start funding those programs again, saying that it could not make the payments on the deadline set by the judge.

Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused the order Wednesday evening, giving the administration more time to make the payments.

In his statement to the lower court, Pete Marocco, who is performing the duties of the deputy administrator of USAID, said each of USAID’s grants had been reviewed and Secretary of State Marco Rubio decided to eliminate about 92% worth of the agency’s grants. The State department also cut around 4,100 grants. The government claimed a total savings of nearly $60 billion dollars.

Contractors were notified of the termination in a memo sent from USAID’s office of Acquisition and Assistance, according to one such letter obtained by NPR. The memo stated that Secretary Rubio and Pete Marocco “have determined your award is not aligned with Agency priorities and made a determination that continuing this program is not in the national interest.”

Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, president and CEO of the Global Health Council, said the situation is “horrible.” She said that even some of the programs that had received waivers for being “life saving humanitarian assistance” – including ones that provided HIV medications – have now received termination notices.

“This is a global health massacre,” said one humanitarian official, who isn’t authorized to speak on behalf of their organization.

Aid groups and advocates have been raising alarms that cuts to USAID’s programs would lead to loss of life, particularly in humanitarian crisis zones such as Sudan, where over 1,000 food aid kitchens supported by USAID have closed amid widespread starvation.

In the court filing, Marocco wrote that 500 of USAID’s grants were retained, but did not go into detail about which programs will be allowed to continue. The agency supported humanitarian and development projects in more than 120 countries and worked to prevent the spread of disease and eliminate poverty.

The State Department said the eliminations followed a review of foreign assistance designed “to ensure taxpayer dollars were used to make America stronger, safer, and more prosperous.”

Gabrielle Emanuel contributed to this report.