[WaPo] Trump moves to wrest control of USAID as Musk says, ‘We’re shutting it down’

methamphetamine and rabies . . . clearly Elon has a burner account in the D&D

 

link will work for everyone

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-d...c?st=mRXt7G&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Trump Dumps African Aid
The split may be an unintentional blessing for the continent.
By Ebenezer Obadare
Feb. 20, 2025 at 5:27 pm ET

President Trump’s executive order on foreign aid, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s suspension of the U.S. Agency for International Development, has been greeted with a mix of alarm and despondency. Experts have decried the move as undermining American soft power during a time when Washington faces the challenge of curtailing China and Russia in Africa. Others have suggested that shuttering USAID, apart from signaling that the U.S. can’t be trusted to honor its commitments, would drive allies toward deals with American adversaries.

These apprehensions are justified. The $72 billion that the U.S. reportedly disbursed in fiscal 2023 alone may be a drop in the bucket of America’s annual budget, but the money goes a long way in communities where lives are on the line and in places where humanitarian assistance has become a staple.

Nonetheless, it would seem that Mr. Trump has unintentionally emerged as a ventriloquist for many of the concerns ordinary Africans, especially entrepreneurs, have expressed about foreign aid. One such concern is that by creating and stoking a culture of dependency, foreign aid stymies local initiative. Further, by giving ordinarily unaccountable state actors unfettered access to large sums outside their conventional means, foreign aid strengthens the hands of kleptocratic regimes, making aid, in the ultimate paradox, anti-democratic. In 2023 alone, Nigeria and Somalia reportedly received $1 billion each. Total aid to Africa since 1960 is estimated to be more than $2.6 trillion, according to the African Energy Chamber. It is only fair to ask how the money has been spent.

An even more devastating criticism is directed against donor-supported civil society organizations, accused of being nothing more than urban creations with no organic connection to lived experience. Or scholars accuse them of being “briefcase” entities or “side hustles” created by powerful government officials. Either way, the organizations steal the thunder of legitimate community-based organizations.

Well-targeted aid remains essential for impoverished nations, and a total freeze by government may be counterproductive to American interests in the long run. But in the short term, Mr. Trump has done Africa a favor by forcing a much-needed debate on the region’s consistently poor record of governance and the role of foreign aid in its chronic underdevelopment.

Mr. Obadare is a senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Appeared in the February 21, 2025, print edition as 'Trump Dumps African Aid'.




​

 

Trump Administration Live Updates: Judge Allows Plan to Put U.S.A.I.D. Workers on Leave to Proceed

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02/21/us/trump-news/usaid-job-cuts?smid=url-share

The plan to dismiss U.S.A.I.D. employees would all but dismantle the nation’s chief foreign aid agency.
Zach Montague
Reporting from Washington

A federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to follow through on plans to decimate the ranks of the main American aid agency, known as U.S.A.I.D., tossing out a key challenge to mass reductions to the agency’s work force.

In an order on Friday, Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote that continuing to stall the agency from enacting the plans, which include placing more than 2,000 additional employees on administrative leave and forcing some workers posted overseas to return home, was not justifiable. He concluded that the group that brought the lawsuit — an association representing foreign service workers — had not demonstrated that its members faced irreparable injury so far and that it was unlikely to win its case.

The Trump administration had proposed placing nearly the entire global work force of the agency on administrative leave while simultaneously canceling a raft of its programs and imposing a freeze on nearly all foreign aid spending.

Judge Nichols found that the risk of any immediately disruptive action appeared to have abated after a declaration by Pete Marocco, the top Trump appointee in charge of foreign aid, that employees in high-risk areas overseas had not been cut off from security resources, and that the administrative leave had followed protocols to protect workers while conducting a review.

He concluded that the agency’s decision to place employees on paid leave while identifying those in roles it hoped to eliminate was within the president’s authority over executive agencies, and that the government had made a strong case that “the actions challenged in this case are essential to its policy goals."

“Where one side claims that U.S.A.I.D.’s operations are essential to human flourishing and the other side claims they are presently at odds with it, it simply is not possible for the court to conclude, as a matter of law or equity, that the public interest favors or disfavors an injunction,” he wrote.


​

 

gift link will work for everyone

https://wapo.st/3CWFgG5

Judge orders Trump administration to pay millions in USAID funds
Officials have one day to resume foreign aid payments after a contentious hearing in which a government lawyer couldn’t say if funds had been unfrozen.
Updated
February 25, 2025 at 6:51 p.m. EST

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to pay hundreds of millions in foreign assistance funds that have been in limbo despite his previous directive that such aid resume — action targeting President Donald Trump’s broad pause in aid, which has led to chaos globally and dire warnings about escalating famine.

U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali gave the government until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to fulfill its contractual obligations and restart payments to contractors whose work in impoverished parts of the world had been largely stopped during an ongoing legal battle. Administration officials must also provide examples of communication sent to partners on the ground about resuming assistance, Ali ruled.

His order applies to work done before Feb. 13.

Aid groups that are plaintiffs in the case provided evidence that the government has not lifted its suspension of funding, Ali said, and the defendants did not rebut that Tuesday.

The administration filed a notice of appeal late Tuesday afternoon. A spokesman has said officials will not discuss the pending litigation outside of court.

During the contentious 90-minute hearing, Justice Department lawyer Indraneel Sur told Ali he was “not in a position to answer” whether the Trump administration had taken needed steps to allow the assistance to begin moving. Sur said the administration would provide further details in a status report due at noon Wednesday.

“I don’t know why I can’t get a straight answer from you,” Ali responded. “We are now 12 days in. You can’t answer me whether any of the funds … covered by the court’s order have been unfrozen?”

The total amount owed to organizations by the U.S. Agency for International Development was not immediately clear, but one development group, DAI Global LLC, said in court filings that it is owed more than $115 million. Separately, the U.N. World Food Program — the largest distributor of food aid — is owed more than $820 million, officials confirmed this week.
​

more at the link

​

 

Chief Justice Allows U.S. to Continue Freeze on Foreign Aid Payments
Lawyers for the government had said it would miss a deadline to release more than $1.5 billion in payments for past aid work and sought a late intervention from the Supreme Court.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/us/politics/trump-usaid-foreign-aid.html?smid=url-share

excerpt:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Wednesday night handed the Trump administration a victory for now in saying that the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department did not need to immediately pay for more than $1.5 billion in already completed aid work.

A federal judge had set a midnight deadline for the agencies to release funds for the foreign aid work, which was withheld in the wake of the president’s Day 1 directive to gut U.S. spending overseas.

The Trump administration, in an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court just hours before the deadline, said the judge had overstepped his authority and interfered with the president’s obligations to “make appropriate judgments about foreign aid.”

Chief Justice Roberts issued an “administrative stay,” an interim measure meant to preserve the status quo while the justices consider the matter in a more deliberate fashion. The chief justice ordered the challengers to file a response to the application on Friday, and the court is likely to act not long after.
​

more at the link