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• Funding for medicines, shelter to be exempted from blanket freeze
• Judge blocks Trump order halting federal funding for domestic programmes
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday relaxed its sweeping freeze on foreign assistance, saying the United States would keep funding humanitarian items, such as shelter and medicine.
President Donald Trump had ordered a 90-day pause to review assistance by the United States, the world’s largest donor in dollar terms.
Rubio followed up by freezing virtually all funding, though he specified exemptions for emergency food as well as military assistance to Israel and Egypt.
In a follow-up memo after an outcry from aid groups, Rubio clarified that other “humanitarian assistance” besides food would also be exempt during the review period.
Humanitarian assistance was defined as “core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter and subsistence assistance”.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, writing on X, said, “Urgent needs are being met.”
She wrote, “Blanket waivers are in place for emergency food and other emergency humanitarian assistance. And a waiver process exists for items not covered by pre-existing waivers.”
Bruce said that the goal was to get rid of “egregious” funding and programs not in line with Trump administration priorities.
The waiver was welcomed by UNAIDS, which said the move will allow people in several countries to continue accessing life-saving HIV treatments.
But despite the limited relaxation, health and humanitarian groups around the world are still uncertain if and how they could resume work.
Officials from USAID, aid groups, and health workers in Africa, Asia, Europe and the US said it was not clear what the waiver meant for their work, or if it was in effect a full reversal of previous orders telling them to stop work immediately.
Federal spending freeze
Meanwhile, President Trump’s freeze on federal funding has hit millions of low-income Americans, throwing rafts of programmess into disarray.
Potentially trillions of dollars in federal grants, loans and other aid faced possible suspension by the White House order, but a federal judge halted the order shortly before it was to take effect Tuesday afternoon.
However, the White House said it was prepared to contest US District Judge Loren Ali Khan’s ruling to block the funding freeze.
Even before the order was set to take effect, online portals used to access the Medicaid health insurance programme for poor families and disabled individuals became inaccessible.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the website would be fixed soon and that “no payments have been affected”.
She defended the drastic move as part of Trump’s bid to make the government “good stewards of taxpayer dollars”.
The freeze is not a “blanket” stop on spending, but a tool to check that “every penny that is going out the door is not conflicting with the executive orders and actions that this president has taken,” Leavitt said.
But Democrats have accused Trump of usurping Congress’ constitutionally mandated control over budget spending as part of a broader attempt to force the government to bend to his personal will.
Democratic Senator Patty Murray called the order “a brazen & illegal move”. Another Democratic senator, Richard Blumenthal, said the order will create “havoc” in medical and research facilities, which receive major government funding.
Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2025
