Representatives of the dozens of nonprofit organizations attending a major human rights conference in Taipei, Taiwan, woke up to devastating news last Thursday. During last night in Asia, the Donald Trump administration had suddenly announced that nearly 10,000 contracts and funds from the US State Department, including the Office of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), as well as the US Agency for international development, generally account for about 90 % of USAID contracts.
The announcement was the latest Trump administration’s efforts and the so -called Foreign Ministry of Moscow (DOGE) to limit foreign aid from the United States, which has provided millions of medical and humanitarian aid for decades. A letter sent from USAID to Wired Financial Aid orders them “immediately stop all activities, terminate all subsidiaries and contracts” and prevent additional costs “beyond the inevitable costs associated with this warning”.
Several digital and human rights organizations that spoke with wires in Taipei-more anonymous for fear of punishing the Trump administration or their own governments-have weakened these declines for years that have weakened global democracy and free speech initiatives and endangered the lives and livelihoods of their employees.
Many of the groups in the right -wing law, one of the largest annual human rights and technology -based events organized by nonprofit access, especially providing cyber security support to people such as journalists, activists and other vulnerable groups in authoritarian countries, such as protecting and hacked attacks. Without USAID and the State Department, this will most likely stop.
“The digital security ecosystem has completely collapsed for NGOs,” said Mohammed El Muskati, director of the Access Now Now, who offers free digital security assistance to journalists, activists and civil society groups.
According to the correspondence reviewed by the Wired, only a few days after the termination, some organizations say they have received declarations about sending an error. It is still unclear how the Trump administration has determined that financial aid and organizations will save it.
However, nonprofit organizations that can maintain their budget from the US government will be subject to a new requirement: their contracts now include a rider that will adhere to the anti -Dei executive order signed by Trump in late January. This applies to all the organization’s plans, even if not all of them receive American support. Failure to follow this order may be a violation of false claims, the Trump administration warned of Wired.
When the Wired initially concluded on the cancellations, a State Department representative said: “Every program was investigated with the aim of rebuilding assistance to coordinate with government policy priorities. Programs that serve our country’s interests will continue. However, programs that do not match our national interests will not be.”
The State Department did not answer the follow -up questions about returning specific assistance. USAID did not respond to comment requests. In a post on Monday, Mask claimed that “no one died as a result of a short pause to conduct a health check on foreign aid. Nobody classified DOGE last month in the relief agency, and proudly spent a week of” USAID feeding “.
