Donald Trump has been sued over an Elon Musk-led attempt to dismantle America’s main foreign aid agency – “illegal actions” that have created a “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 08:30, UK
In just 19 days, Donald Trump has started a global trade war, announced plans to take over Gaza and gutted international aid.
He’s pardoned hundreds of rioters who took part in the 6 January Capitol insurrection, sent migrant detainees to Guantanamo Bay and sanctioned the International Criminal Court.
You’d be forgiven for having some questions.
Our US correspondents are on hand to explain what it all means. They’ll be answering your questions today as part of our Trump 100 podcast – the recording will be streamed live at 4pm and you’ll be able to watch and follow along on this page.
Send in your questions in the box at the top.
The International Criminal Court has condemned Trump’s executive order sanctioning its officials.
Trump’s decisions seeks to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work”, the court said.
“The court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all situations before it.”
Last night Trump ordered financial sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC officials and their family members who have assisted in investigations of US citizens or allies.
This included the arrest warrant out for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, who are accused of murder, persecution and starvation as a method of warfare in Gaza – allegations Israel rejects.
Elon Musk has called the US Agency for International Development a “ball of worms” that should be shut down entirely.
Here we take a look at how the agency works and what it does.
Why was USAID created?
USAID was established in 1961 by President John F Kennedy at the height of the Cold War.
Remarks given by Kennedy to a group of overseas mission directors the following year provide an insight into how he might respond to Musk’s attacks on the agency.
“The people who are opposed to aid should realise that this is a very powerful source of strength for us. It permits us to exert influence for the maintenance of freedom,” Kennedy said.
“As we do not want to send American troops to a great many areas where freedom may be under attack, we send you.”
Every post-war president, whether Democrat or Republican, has been a strong proponent of foreign aid – apart from Donald Trump, according to the Brookings Institution.
What does USAID do?
What began as an effort to coordinate foreign assistance and counter Soviet influence now provides aid to 130 countries.
Its top recipients are Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Syria.
In 2023, it spent $43.79bn on alleviating poverty and disease, as well as supporting economic growth to boost US commercial interests.
How does the US compare?
Not all US aid is administered by USAID. In total, the US disbursed $72bn of aid in 2023, 42% of all humanitarian aid in the world.
The funds covered everything from women’s health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/AIDS treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work.
While the US gives more aid than any other country, its contribution as a percentage of national income was at the bottom of the list for wealthy countries in 2020.
What effect could a shutdown have?
The widespread nature of the agency means that shutting it down would be “absolutely massive,” international correspondent John Sparks said.
“Countries like the EU and UK need to be concerned because if you aren’t funding aid programmes in places like refugee camps, the people who live in those camps will start to move,” Sparks explained.
“And that is why this is such a big deal.
“We are talking about tens of millions of people being looked after by the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees], for example.”
By Yousra Elbagir, Africa correspondent in Johannesburg
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.
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