US State Department says humanitarian assistance continues

By Lauren Kent, CNN

(CNN) — US-funded aid work around the world has been largely brought to a standstill, multiple sources tell CNN, despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claims that the United States continues to provide lifesaving humanitarian aid.

As the Trump administration’s 90-day freeze on nearly all US foreign aid continues into a third week, thousands of USAID personnel were expected to be placed on administrative leave or fired, with plans to only retain several hundred personnel deemed “essential,” effectively gutting the agency. However, a federal judge Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plans to put 2,200 direct hire USAID employees on leave and halted the accelerated removal of staffers from countries around the world.

“The goal of our endeavor has always been to identify programs that work and continue them and to identify programs that are not aligned with our national interest and identify those and address them,” Rubio said Thursday during a visit to the Dominican Republic.

Rubio, now the acting administrator of USAID, reiterated earlier this week that he had issued a blanket waiver for lifesaving programs.

“If it’s providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you’re not included in the freeze. I don’t know how much more clear we can be than that,” Rubio said, questioning the competency of organizations that haven’t applied for a waiver.

However, multiple USAID staff and contractors who have spoken to CNN say that’s not reflective of the situation on the ground.

Almost all USAID humanitarian assistance programs remain stopped in their tracks, they said.

“That work is grounded to a halt because there’s no staff to manage it, and there’s no staff in DC to answer questions from partners,” one USAID employee told CNN. “The entire humanitarian architecture across the world has literally just collapsed because they have decided to stop allowing folks to work.”

“Our payment systems have been taken over. We no longer can pay. We don’t have staff,” the USAID employee said, adding that has caused even supposedly exempt work to stop, in dire places like Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Ethiopia.

The power to process payments has “been taken away from USAID,” the agency employee said.

Some nongovernmental organizations operating in other countries have received waivers to continue parts of their work, they told CNN on the condition of anonymity, for fear of losing future US government funding.

But even those limited activities have been disrupted because NGOs don’t have money to pay the salaries of aid workers and, in some cases, USAID stop-work orders are still in place.

CNN has reached out to USAID for comment.

When asked about several issues preventing lifesaving work from continuing following Trump’s executive order, the State Department directed CNN to Rubio’s comments in the Dominican Republic, where he said the department made it “clear in the guidance that there would be specially designated programs that would not be a part of that order, and we are working through the process of identifying them now, what those specially designated programs are. And we will continue to work through the process of finding them.”

Meanwhile, food procurement in the Tigray region of Ethiopia has been halted, according to a coalition of humanitarian NGOs in the country. And nutrition services for malnourished children and adults have also been suspended, despite Rubio’s waiver for lifesaving food assistance.

In Syrian refugee camps, the US funded coordination costs and services to protect aid workers. That money is now frozen, meaning even organizations with other funding have suspended operations, according to a source familiar with the situation.

One former contractor working on a project with USAID in Syria, which funded the volunteer nongovernmental organization the White Helmets, told CNN that their grant was frozen.

Food kitchens funded by the US in Sudan are already shutting down, according to Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official.

“A lot of displaced people and a lot of people who are caught in famine and other crises could be harmed, if not gravely harmed, if not killed by this pullback of aid,” Konyndyk said, warning of the wide-reaching impact on refugees in Sudan, Syria and Gaza.

Konyndyk also noted that USAID employees can’t act on the waivers if they are locked out of their government systems or placed on administrative leave.

Waiver ‘100% meaningless,’ aid worker says

Multiple aid workers told CNN that it’s the mechanics of the system and layoffs – not anyone’s incompetence – that has halted the humanitarian work.

Many USAID projects are carried out by federal contractors, which typically cover costs up front and then submit invoices for reimbursement – but USAID isn’t currently processing those payments, a USAID official said Friday.

“The waiver is 100% meaningless to us,” the USAID official told CNN earlier this week.

Federal contractors at two US companies said their invoices have not been paid since Inauguration Day.

“Everything has been shut down,” one source with knowledge of the operations at Chemonics, one of the largest USAID contractors, told CNN.

“The work we do on behalf of the US government provides critical health commodities to address HIV/AIDS and malaria around the world, supports efforts to curb migration from Central America, engages the US agriculture partners and know how to support Ukrainian food production, and supports democracies throughout the world,” a spokesperson for Chemonics said in a statement. “As a result of the stop-work order, we have been unable to withdraw funds from the letter of credit to pay vendors and for expenses incurred prior to the stop-work order.”

According to the Professional Services Council, the trade association for many federal contractors, the US government owes its member companies about $500 million in unpaid invoices since the foreign aid freeze went into effect.

“These payments would be for completed work required by existing contracts and for which contractors had already spent the money,” the council said in a statement, calling on the government to “pay its bills.”

Some aid efforts are also being stopped because groups implementing the projects have not been given clarity on what activities are allowed to continue.

“If a partner proceeds without clarity on what they are allowed to do under their award and under this executive order, then they are taking an enormous risk,” one USAID employee said. If they do something – even if it’s lifesaving – that is later deemed to go against the order, “they will get slammed down and maybe shut down.”

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Devan Cole, Alexander Marquardt, Sean Lyngaas and Casey Riddle contributed reporting.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.