State Department moves to terminate nearly 10,000 foreign aid contracts

The State Department announced the conclusion of its review of foreign aid funds that the President had frozen at the start of his new administration. Ultimately, nearly 10,000 government contracts worth about $60 billion in humanitarian work abroad will be terminated by the Department – accounting for more than 90% of its foreign aid contracts. Some of these terminated projects include lifesaving programs that had previously been waived from the freeze by Secretary Rubio. 

While legal challenges to the foreign aid freeze remain ongoing, the impact is clear. According to the Guttmacher Institute’s calculations, which are updated every minute, millions of women and girls have already been denied contraceptive care because of the foreign aid funding freeze. Already, the funding freeze has been absolutely devastating and caused egregious harm to the work of fighting epidemics, educating children, providing food and clean water, and providing health care in projects previously funded by the U.S. in over 120 countries.