Soup kitchens can no longer feed the hungry. First responders are unable to reach the dead and wounded. Mothers and fathers search in vain for the medicines that keep them alive.
Last week, thousands of “stop-work” orders went out to employees and contractors for the United States Agency for International Development, or
USAID, which has long been Washington’s main vehicle for global aid.
“We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” billionaire Elon Musk ... boasted. Calling the agency a “radical-left political psy op” and “a criminal organization,” Musk said it was “time for it to die.”
In the most desperate places, like
war-ravaged Sudan, the fallout has been immediate. Half the population of 50 million needs food aid, and famine is spreading as Islamist militias and their allies in the military battle a paramilitary
accused by Washington of genocide. The USAID suspension has halted national food programs serving millions and shuttered hundreds of community kitchens
A worker for another medical aid group recounted receiving a desperate call on Saturday from health officials in Omdurman, northwest of the capital, begging them to send an ambulance to a market that had just been bombed.
“Unfortunately I told them that the ambulance is no longer available because of the suspension; it was a rented vehicle so the owner took it back,” the medical aid worker said. At least 54 people were killed and 158 injured in the attack, local authorities said.
The stop-work orders have also grounded efforts to contain a deadly hemorrhagic Marburg outbreak in Tanzania, the spread of an mpox variant killing children in West Africa, as well as the monitoring of a dangerous bird flu that has been identified in 49 countries, according to Atul Gawande, the former head of global health at USAID.
Traditionally, USAID has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in Washington. In addition to saving lives, its backers say it helps stabilize some of the world’s poorest and most volatile regions while acting as a bulwark against Russian and Chinese influence.
After a bipartisan outcry, Rubio on
Saturday announced a specific carve-out [again the administration rescinding its own actions] to enable continued funding for PEPFAR — a universally celebrated
HIV/AIDS program launched by former president George W. Bush that is credited with saving millions of lives in Africa and which 20 million people still depend on. Despite the exemption, many PEPFAR initiatives have been thrown into chaos.
“I’m told that drugs are still being withheld at clinics in Africa,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) said
Monday on X.
