Trump’s freeze on US aid rings alarm bells from Thailand to Ukraine

BERLIN/BANGKOK/LONDON - Field hospitals in Thai refugee camps, landmine clearance in warzones, and drugs to treat millions suffering from diseases such as HIV are among the programmes facing the chop as President Donald Trump contemplates massive cuts to US foreign aid.

Mr Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development (USAid) for 90 days to assess compatibility with his "America First" policy, setting alarm bells ringing among aid groups around the world that depend on US largesse.

Humanitarian organisations and UN agencies say they could face drastic curbs on their ability to distribute food, shelter and healthcare if the freeze becomes permanent.

The US is by far the biggest contributor to global humanitarian aid, supplying an estimated US$13.9 billion (S$18.8 billion) in 2024, accounting for 42 per cent of all aid tracked by the United Nations.

Clinics at camps in Thailand providing shelter for about 100,000 refugees from Myanmar were ordered to shut after the US froze funding to the International Rescue Committee, according to a senior aid worker.

Washington said it would grant waivers to the freeze in some areas, including emergency food assistance, according to a memo seen by Reuters. Bangladesh's government said in a statement that the US had granted a waiver for emergency food aid to more than a million Rohingya refugees sheltering in Bangladesh.

But the exemption does not apply to other humanitarian programming. A Bangladesh-based aid worker said organisations working on shelter, for example, would not be able to buy new materials for building and fixing homes for refugees.

The cuts will also affect the supply of lifesaving drugs for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis around the globe, which millions of people depend on, according to another memo seen by Reuters.

On Jan 28, contractors and partners who work with USAid began receiving such memos to stop work immediately.

‘Catastrophic’

"This is catastrophic," said Mr Atul Gawande, former head of global health at USAid who left the agency this month. "Donated drug supplies keeping 20 million people living with HIV alive. That stops today."

The cuts will affect organisations working with 6.5 million orphans and vulnerable children with HIV in 23 countries, Mr Gawande said.

World Food Programme (WFP) country director for Afghanistan Hsiao-Wei Lee told Reuters she was concerned about the freeze given that the WFP was already only receiving about half the aid it needed for Afghanistan, and that over six million people were surviving on "just bread and tea".

The WFP received US$4.7 billion from the US in 2024, accounting for 54 per cent of its funding, according to the UN.

Some NGOs are resorting to donations from the public to fund the shortfall caused by the freeze. The Freeland Foundation, a counter-trafficking group in Bangkok, has started a GoFundMe to get it through the 90-day freeze.

“Two days ago, the new Trump administration suddenly froze all foreign aid, including our wildlife protection programmes,” the group said.

“Poachers and traffickers will not freeze their operations. Can you help us keep our front-line teams going for 90 days until the freeze is lifted?“

The order to freeze funding has thrown USAid missions and their partners into chaos, with many organisations unsure whether to lay off staff, start selling assets such as cars or tell employees to take unpaid leave, according to a source at the agency. USAid has been forbidden from communicating with implementing partners except to say funds have been paused, the person said.

“These are people we work with on a daily basis,” the source added. “We can’t speak with them any more.”

Other agencies said they would be unaffected by the freeze. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh said the agency did not receive funding from USAid.

Independent media outlets that receive external funding in countries with authoritarian governments may struggle to survive, say media freedom activists.

In Georgia, where a "foreign agents law" passed in 2024 established punitive fines for NGOs that fail to declare receiving more than 20 per cent of their funding from overseas, Mr Shalva Papuashvili, speaker of parliament from the Georgian Dream ruling party, welcomed the US aid freeze.

"I was pleasantly surprised when Trump's executive order was based on the fact that international assistance, in some cases, is used to create certain... chaos on the ground, including harming US interests," he was quoted as saying by Georgian media.

Landmines, education

In 2023, the US was the largest landmine action donor with a total contribution of US$310 million, representing 39 per cent of all international support, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Syria, Myanmar, Ukraine and Afghanistan were among the countries where uncleared mines claim most lives.

The State Department said on Jan 26 that the US government must refocus on American national interests in its role as steward of taxpayer dollars.

"President Trump stated clearly that the United States is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people. Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative," the State Department said.

Ms Oksana Matiiash, board chair at Teach for Ukraine, an NGO that trains graduates and specialists as teachers to improve the education system, said there was growing panic in Ukraine's NGO sector.

"It's not just funding that's frozen. Behind every grant are real people working in unimaginable conditions," Ms Matiiash wrote on LinkedIn. REUTERS