Canada calls USAID shutdown a ‘dangerous retreat’ for foreign aid

Canada is “deeply concerned” astir the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the United States’ pb foreign aid agency, national authorities officials accidental amid increasing alarm astir the interaction to planetary charities and assistance programs.

The medication said this week it is pulling each employees astatine the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) disconnected the occupation and retired of the tract globally by the extremity of Friday unless they are deemed essential.

The agency’s website was replaced with that removal notice connected Monday, its societal media accounts are down, and each backing has been frozen arsenic U.S. President Donald Trump and his allies people what they telephone wasteful spending by galore USAID programs.

USAID works with respective planetary partners, including Canada, to respond to humanitarian crises and enactment susceptible populations worldwide, a spokesperson for International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen said successful an emailed connection to Global News.

“Canada is profoundly acrophobic by the U.S. administration’s determination to unopen down USAID,” the spokesperson said.

“The nonaccomplishment of USAID’s enactment and resources represents a unsafe retreat that risks decades of advancement successful warring inequality, starvation, pandemics, and authoritarianism. This determination volition deed hardest for those who beryllium connected assistance for nutrient security, wellness care, and exigency relief.”

The U.S. is the world’s largest humanitarian donor by far.

It spends little than 1 per cent of its fund connected overseas assistance, a smaller stock than respective European countries. Canada besides spends little than 1 per cent of its GDP connected overseas aid.

USAID funds projects successful immoderate 120 countries aimed astatine warring epidemics, educating children, providing cleanable h2o and supporting different areas of development.

But Trump and allies similar Elon Musk person besides zeroed successful connected programs the bureau funds that beforehand diverseness and inclusion, peculiarly for LGBTQ2+ radical and sex equality.

Canada has partnered with USAID connected respective projects implicit the past decade, including h2o absorption successful Peru and humanitarian alleviation successful Gaza and the West Bank. Many of the projects listed successful an online spouse illustration noted sex equality arsenic a “significant” result oregon goal, successful enactment with Canada’s stated priorities for overseas aid.

“Canada has been wide — overseas assistance is not a handout, it’s an concern successful the safety, security, and well-being of Canadians and communities astir the world,” the spokesperson for Hussen’s bureau said.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been named the acting manager of USAID, has defended the agency’s shutdown and said overseas assistance volition proceed aft a “from the bottommost up” review.

“This is not astir ending overseas aid. It is astir structuring it successful a mode that furthers the nationalist involvement of the United States,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday successful Guatemala City.

Democratic lawmakers person protested extracurricular USAID’s shuttered Washington offices this week, calling the actions spearheaded by Musk “illegal” and a “coup.”

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The USAID announcement said indispensable unit “responsible for mission-critical functions, halfway enactment and specially designated programs” would beryllium informed by Thursday day if they volition beryllium kept on.

The wide removal of thousands of staffers would doom billions of dollars successful planetary projects, including information assistance for Ukraine and different countries, arsenic good arsenic improvement enactment for cleanable water, occupation grooming and education, including for schoolgirls nether Taliban regularisation successful Afghanistan.

The shutdown means wellness programs — similar those credited with helping extremity polio and smallpox epidemics and an acclaimed HIV/AIDS program, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), that saved much than 20 cardinal lives successful Africa — already person stopped.

So person monitoring and deployments of rapid-response teams for contagious diseases, specified arsenic an Ebola outbreak successful Uganda.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of nutrient and medicine already delivered by U.S. companies are sitting successful ports due to the fact that of the administration’s abrupt shutdown of the agency.

Lauren Ravon, the enforcement manager of Oxfam Canada, told Global News the planetary assistance assemblage is “scrambling” to enactment afloat. Oxfam doesn’t person USAID backing straight but partners with organizations that do.

“There isn’t a state oregon a assemblage connected this satellite that hasn’t had immoderate level of enactment from USAID,” she said, from health-care systems to civilian nine and exile assistance programs.

Ravon said Oxfam, which focuses connected promoting women’s rights and intersexual and reproductive state astir the world, is acrophobic those initiatives volition endure adjacent if USAID returns successful a much constricted capacity.

Hussen’s bureau said Canada volition proceed its overseas assistance missions without U.S. authorities partners.

“Our authorities volition not backmost down from its planetary commitments,” it said. “Global challenges request corporate action, and we volition proceed to bash our portion by forging caller partnerships that enactment peace, security, and prosperity for all.”

Ravon said filling the spread near by USAID is “almost insurmountable.”

“The satellite has been facing a grounds levels of humanitarian crises, truthful the humanitarian strategy arsenic a full was already overstretched,” she said. “Having the bottommost autumn retired has immense implications.”

—With files from the Associated Press