Wednesday Briefing: Trump’s Funding Freeze

Several states were planning yesterday to file suit to block President Trump’s order to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans. The move, part of an effort to remake the government in his image, followed cuts to international aid introduced last week.

The Trump administration instructed organizations in other countries to stop distributing H.I.V. medications purchased with U.S. aid, even if the drugs had already been obtained and were sitting in local clinics. Several humanitarian organizations in Ukraine said they had been forced to suspend operations that include the delivery of assistance to war veterans and internally displaced people.

And in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, where America’s unexploded bombs from the Vietnam War continue to kill people to this day, the State Department said it was suspending global mine-clearing programs for at least three months.

My colleague Edward Wong, a diplomatic correspondent, said that leaders of aid organizations told him that they had “never seen anything as sweeping as this suspension of U.S. aid.”

“Many programs,” Edward told me, “won’t be able to maintain the integrity of their projects if they stop now and then wait to restart their work later, if they are even allowed to restart.”

In the U.S.: Trump’s order shut down the flow of money to state offices for Medicaid, the program that provides health care to millions of low-income Americans, among other services.