{"id":915,"date":"2025-01-26T12:17:47","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T13:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/?p=915"},"modified":"2025-01-26T13:25:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T13:25:37","slug":"us-officials-pushing-to-unfreeze-aid-for-ukraine-ft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/26\/us-officials-pushing-to-unfreeze-aid-for-ukraine-ft\/","title":{"rendered":"US officials pushing to unfreeze aid for Ukraine \u2013 FT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diplomats have reportedly asked the government to make an exception for Kiev, after Trump suspended most of Washington\u2019s foreign aid programs<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Several US diplomats have urged the State Department to make an exception for Ukraine-related programs after President Donald Trump ordered a sweeping suspension on foreign aid, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Trump\u2019s order potentially jeopardizes support for Ukrainian schools, hospitals, and infrastructure development, although military aid remains intact, according to the newspaper.\u00a0
<\/strong><\/p>\n

Acting on behalf of the US president, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued instructions on Friday to suspend any new foreign aid expenditure for 90 days. Contracting and grant officers from the State Department and USAID were directed to \u201cimmediately issue stop-work orders\u2026 until such time as the secretary shall determine, following a review,\u201d<\/em> according to a leaked cable cited by the FT.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The newspaper claimed that by Saturday evening, several organizations in Ukraine had received orders to stop their operations until further notice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, USAID in Ukraine has generally chosen to defy Rubio\u2019s decree to issue \u201cstop work\u201d<\/em> orders until it receives more clarification from Washington, the FT claimed. American diplomats campaigning for aid to Kiev to be unfrozen reportedly hope that they will be able to win Rubio over. \u201cWe do not know at this time whether this request will be approved \u2014 in whole or in part \u2014 but there are positive signals thus far out of Washington,\u201d<\/em> an email sent to USAID staff in Ukraine on Saturday said, according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"FILE
Trump wants Ukraine \u2018off his table\u2019 \u2013 Bolton<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The outlet claims that Rubio\u2019s order endangers support for the development of Ukrainian infrastructure, energy, and economy projects, while not affecting American military assistance. The FT quotes an unnamed Ukrainian government official as saying that \u201cmilitary aid to Ukraine is intact. At least as of now, and it is certainly not part of this 90-day freeze.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The pause in US foreign development aid was announced by President Trump on Monday, just hours after his inauguration. The freeze aims to review the effectiveness and alignment of aid with US foreign policy objectives. The only exceptions are military financing for Israel and Egypt, as well as foreign emergency food aid. Ukraine was not part of the list of exceptions.<\/p>\n

Since February 2022, the US has provided over $65 billion in military aid to Kiev, according to the State Department. However, Trump has been skeptical of the assistance, saying Ukraine has \u201chad enough\u201d<\/em> and that it is time for a peace agreement to be reached with Russia. His team is reportedly aiming to end the conflict between Kiev and Moscow in 100 days, threatening Russia with more sanctions if it does not agree to negotiate. While Moscow remains skeptical about the timeline, it has signaled a willingness to engage in talks.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diplomats have reportedly asked the government to make an exception for Kiev, after Trump suspended most of Washington\u2019s foreign aid programs Several US diplomats have urged the State Department to make an exception for Ukraine-related programs after President Donald Trump ordered a sweeping suspension on foreign aid, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Trump\u2019s order…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=915"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":918,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915\/revisions\/918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}