The United States has drastically reduced the budgets of development and aid programs abroad, with several years reduced contracts by 92 percent, or $ 54 billion, the State Department said Wednesday.
On his first day in office, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order that demanded a freezing of all foreign aid of the United States for 90 days. The pause was aimed at allowing the administration to review the expense abroad with one eye to the non -aligned destroying programs with the Trump’s “America First America” agenda.
The review in part was aimed at foreign assistance contracts of several years granted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with the vast majority eliminated during its course.
“At the conclusion of a process led by the Usaid leadership, including the sections personally reviewed by the Secretary (Marco) Rubio, almost 5,800 awards were identified with $ 54 billion of remaining value for elimination as part of the first agenda of the United States: a 92PC reduction,” said a state department spokesman in a statement.
The review also analyzed more than 9,100 subsidies involving foreign assistance, valued at more than $ 15.9 billion.
At the end of the review, 4,100 subsidies worth almost $ 4.4 billion were destined to be eliminated, a 28pc reduction.
“These common sense eliminations will allow offices, together with their contracting officers and subsidies, concentrate on the remaining programs, find additional efficiencies and adapt more closely programs after the priorities of America of the Administration,” said the statement of the State Department.
The programs that were not reduced included food assistance, medical treatments that save lives for diseases such as HIV and malaria and support for countries such as Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Lebanon, among others, said the spokesman.
On Tuesday, a federal judge gave the Trump administration less than two days to defrost all the aid, after a previous court order issued almost two weeks before was ignored.
The Trump administration presented a petition to suspend the order of the lower court, which was granted by the president of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts, on Wednesday night, according to reports from the US media.
USAID, created after a bill approved by Congress in 1961, had a workforce of more than 10,000 employees before freezing, which caused shock and dismay among staff.
The agency announced on February 23 that it was dismissing 1,600 of its employees in the United States and placing most of the remaining administrative license.
During his electoral campaign, Trump promised to cut the expenditure and bureaucracy of the federal government, a task that gave his main donor and close advisor, billionaire Elon Musk, as part of the newly created government efficiency department (Doge).
US federal workers go back to the cuts of musk
The few dozen protesters crossed the corridors of the US Senate, carrying their angry message from door to door, part of the growing base protests against sweeping cuts to the government force of the government led by billionaire Elon Musk.
Council for the security personnel who warn them that the busy halls do not block, federal workers were presented to the offices of multiple Republican senators, including the leader of the majority John Thune, to express their anguish.
“The goal is to hear us,” said Steve, 33, who, like many federal workers and insecure contractors of his future, asked not to use his entire name for fear of reprisals.
“We achieve examples of how people are directly affected by the dismantling of agencies,” Steve said.
The unprecedented attack of Musk against the United States civil service in the first weeks of the second administration of President Donald Trump has overturned to the entire agencies, leaving the workers of the confused and bitter career government.
“Everyone feels pain,” Steve said. Some of the senators seemed “receptive” at the beginning, but when asked what they would do to help, “they are crickets.”
The Trump Sock-And-Awe’s approach, backed by an avalanche of executive orders that seek to put their right-wing on all facets of the government, has not seen anything like the type of mass public protests seen at the beginning of its first mandate in 2017.
But resistance is emerging among current and previous federal workers, who respond with demonstrations, media campaigns, high profile resignations and demands.
“It is very base,” said Vera Zlidar, a contractor with problems from the USAID agency, which has been destroyed in the Musk campaign.
“The work we do touches so many facets of people’s lives,” he said.
Social network pages, message boards and websites have proliferated with thousands of followers, destined to mobilize resistance, as well as share how cuts will affect everyday Americans.
Senate protests vary in size but have become a daily event. “We have to save ourselves,” said a federal worker and a protest organizer, again asking not to identify.
Resignation
Some federal workers have protested renouncing.
This week, approximately one third of technology employees in the so -called Doge de Musk, saying that they would not work in a way that puts the country at risk.
Before the approximately 20 employees left Doge, federal employees had created a website called “We are the builders” to share stories about the impact of Dux actions, arguing that they were the skills of paralyzing agencies to provide crucial services.
Part of the group logo is a spoon, a symbol now used by federal workers to protest Musk’s cuts, referring to an email from the technology entrepreneur’s team entitled “Hornilla along the way”, in which government employees received an offer to leave with eight months of payment or risk of being fired in the future.
The US media reported cases of federal workers who flood work messages with spoon emojis for troll to musk lieutenants or add the symbol of cutlery to their online profiles.
Dozens of demands have also emerged against Musk’s threats or demands, with mixed results.
The largest federal union of employees, the American Federation of Government Employees (ANGE), has promised to challenge and illegal endings, calling “deranged” Musk.
‘Superpower’
The members of the Republican Congress, who control both the Chamber and the Senate, are unanimously loyal to Trump. However, Musk’s uproar tension is growing in parties of the party.
And one February Washington Post-Prote de Upsos showed disgust by Musk’s approach to reduce federal workforce.
But musk and the White House have been motionless.
The richest person on Earth has published a series of messages on its X platform that despises federal works and share surveys of their own PAC America, a political action committee that he founded to support Trump, saying that Dege “is one of the most popular parts” of the president’s agenda.
The protester’s organizer said the pressure will grow as more agencies are under the musk knife and thousands of public officials without work are expelled.
“Free time is its superpower,” said the organizer.
