Donald Trump has been sued over an Elon Musk-led attempt to dismantle America’s main foreign aid agency – “illegal actions” that have created “global humanitarian crisis”. Submit your questions on anything Trump related below – our US experts will answer them live in a Q&A at 4pm today.
Friday 7 February 2025 07:38, UK
In just 19 days, Donald Trump has started a global trade war, announced plans to take over Gaza and gutted international aid.
He has pardoned hundreds of rioters who took part in the 6 January 2021 insurrection, sent migrant detainees to Guantanamo Bay, and and sanctioned the International Criminal Court.
You’d be forgiven for having some questions.
Our Trump 100 podcast team are here to take them and explain what it all means in a live edition streamed from 4pm.
Submit your queries to them in the form at the top of the page.
By Yousra Elbagir, Africa correspondent
A woman walks up to the security guards outside a shuttered USAID-funded sexual health clinic in Johannesburg’s inner-city district.
She looks around with confusion as they let her know the clinic is closed.
She tells us it has only been two months since she came here to receive her usual care.
Now, she must scramble to find another safe place for her sexual health screenings and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) – her regular defence against rampant HIV.
On the day he was sworn in as US president for a second time, Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing foreign aid for a 90-day period.
That is being challenged by federal employee unions in court over what it says are “unconstitutional and illegal actions” that have created a “global humanitarian crisis”.
And the order has had an immediate impact on South Africa’s most vulnerable.
Read on here…
The largest US government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers have sued the Trump administration to stop its near-shutdown of the US Agency for International Development.
Trump paused all US foreign aid on the day of his inauguration and his administration plans to keep fewer than 300 USAID employees out of more than 10,000, sources told Reuters.
The lawsuit says Trump’s “unconstitutional and illegal actions” have created a “global humanitarian crisis” and that Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle USAID.
“The agency’s collapse has had disastrous humanitarian consequences,” it read, including shutting down efforts to fight malaria and HIV.
“Already, 300 babies that would not have had HIV, now do.
“Thousands of girls and women will die from pregnancy and childbirth.”
Trump’s foreign aid freeze has also left 500,000 metric tonnes of food worth $340m to tackle world hunger in limbo.
The gutting of Washington’s primary humanitarian aid agency has been overseen by Elon Musk.
On Monday, he posted on X that his employees “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper”.
The agency’s website states that at midnight tonight “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programmes”.
The mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency that has helped keep tens of millions of people around the world from dying, said John Atwood, who served as head of USAID for more than six years.
“That’s outrageous,” he said, adding: “A lot of people will not survive.”
The agency provided aid to some 130 countries in 2023, many
of them shattered by conflict and deeply impoverished.
The top recipients were Ukraine, followed by Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
Our Africa correspondent Yousra Elgabir is in South Africa, where she’s witnessed the effects of Trump’s decision to freeze foreign aid on people living with HIV – we’ll bring you her report shortly.
Welcome back to our live coverage of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office.
Before we resume our updates and analysis, here are the key developments from the past 24 hours:
That’s all for another day of our live coverage looking at Donald Trump’s first 100 days as US president.
We’ll be back once again tomorrow morning with further updates.
Before we sign off, here’s a rundown of what’s been going on over the last 24 hours:
Trump signed three executive orders yesterday, including sanctioning the International Criminal Court and targeting “anti-Christian bias” in federal government.
He also ordered a review of funding to all non-governmental organisations that rely on federal cash.
In other news:
We’ve just seen Donald Trump sign an executive order which included sanctions on the International Criminal Court (see 21.56 post).
But it’s not the first time the US president has imposed sanctions on the court.
In June 2020, when Trump was three years into his first term as president, he placed sanctions on senior ICC officials as the court investigated whether the US committed war crimes in Afghanistan.
Under the order, the US could block assets of ICC employees and prevent them from entering the country – a move the court said was an attack on justice and the rule of law.
Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the sanctions, which were lifted in April 2021, as “inappropriate and ineffective”.
By Sam Doak and Olive Enokido-Lineham, OSINT producers
Previously, the Guantanamo Migrant Operations Centre (MOC) held primarily migrants picked up by US authorities at sea.
Under new plans, it is set to house thousands of migrants accused of committing crimes, who the Trump administration has branded “the worst of the worst”.
Satellite images captured on 4 February by Planet Labs show preparations at the site on the island of Cuba have been carried out at a rapid pace.
Three areas have been readied for arrivals, with tents springing up across the facility.
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been at the White House today for meetings.
Posting on social media site X, Meta spokesman Andy Stone said Zuckerberg was in attendance to “discuss how Meta can help the administration defend and advance American tech abroad”.
Zuckerberg was in attendance at Donald Trump’s inauguration last month, with Meta saying last week it would pay $25m to end a lawsuit from Trump over the suspension of his accounts following the 6 January 2021 riot at the Capitol.
Donald Trump has just signed an executive order targeting “eradicating anti-Christian bias” in the federal government.
“It is the policy of the United States, and the purpose of this order, to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponisation of government,” it says.
The order says it will prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism and “work tirelessly to uphold” religious freedom.
It adds that attorney general Pam Bondi will lead a task force on eradicating the “anti-Christian bias” within the federal government.
Trump has not cited specific examples of this bias but has previously claimed the Biden administration used the federal government to target Christians specifically.
It is time to present “other options for the people of Gaza,” Danny Danon, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, has said.
Speaking on The World with Yalda Hakim, Danon stated “many leaders around the world” speak on the behalf of Palestinians, but “never came up with real solutions”.
“I think many of the people in Gaza, if they get the offer to go to other places and start a new life, I think many of them would choose that option,” he said.
“It’s about time to think about real solutions, about new out-of-the-box ideas,” he added.
Speaking on what the future of Gaza holds, Danon said Israel has “no intention” to stay in Gaza.
“We went back into Gaza because we had no choice after 7 October,” he explained.
“We have the hostages still held in captivity, but for the future of Gaza, I think it is time to think about other options.
“Hamas will not stay there, and I think we should welcome the involvement of more countries to take real actions for the future of Gaza.”
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