On Wednesday, reports began dribbling out that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had signed off on eliminating 92 percent of USAID grants, around 4,100 of them, with a savings of $60 billion. On Thursday morning, foreign aid officials woke up to see the details of those cuts. The reaction was justified shock.
Programs that the administration had suggested it believed were worth continuing were now being terminated. That includes efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic"such as George W. Bush's famed PEPFAR program"that have been a source of bipartisan pride for decades.
That was just a small portion of the carnage.
Two sources familiar with the matter say USAID support for South Africa's PEPFAR programs were also terminated overnight. The Trump administration had already moved to cut off all aid to the country, citing disagreement with social policies there.
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