WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) \u2014 U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a sweeping pause on almost all of the State Department\u2019s existing foreign aid grants, according to reports by U.S. and British media that obtained an internal memo specifying the order in the form of guidance.<\/p>\n
Effective immediately and valid for 90 days, Rubio\u2019s guidance required State Department staffers to issue \u201cstop-work orders\u201d on nearly all \u201cexisting foreign assistance awards,\u201d U.S. outlet Politico reported. <\/p>\n
For exceptions, the guidance allows foreign military financing for Egypt and Israel to continue and allows emergency food assistance and \u201clegitimate expenses incurred prior to the date of this\u201d guidance \u201cunder existing awards.\u201d <\/p>\n
At points, it also says the decisions need to be \u201cconsistent with the terms of the relevant award,\u201d the outlet added. \u201cNo new funds shall be obligated for new awards or extensions of existing awards until each proposed new award or extension has been reviewed and approved \u2026 as consistent with President Trump\u2019s agenda,\u201d The Guardian, a British newspaper that has also obtained the memo, cited the document as saying.<\/p>\n
The memo said senior officials \u201cshall ensure that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, no new obligations shall be made for foreign assistance\u201d until Rubio makes a decision after a review, according to The Guardian. In their respective reports, both Politico and The Guardian noticed the memo\u2019s omission of current U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, which the reports said has sent shock waves across the State Department.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) \u2014 U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered a sweeping pause on almost all of the State Department\u2019s existing foreign aid grants, according to reports by U.S. and British media that obtained an internal memo specifying the order in the form of guidance. Effective immediately and valid for 90 days, Rubio\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}