Recently, some information online said that American President Donald Trump’s new order paused aid for Ukraine, and some sources say that includes military aid, too.
Many people have asked us if that’s true in our Perevirka fact-checking bot since January 21.
It’s partially true: foreign aid to Ukraine (as well as other countries) was paused, but that doesn’t include military assistance America provides to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s all-out war. The information about the pause is often presented in a manipulative context online, making it seem like US military assistance has also halted.
What aid did Trump’s order actually “pause”
On January 20, after his inauguration, re-elected president of America Donald Trump signed an executive order called Reevaluating And Realigning United States Foreign Aid. The order establishes a 90-day pause in US foreign aid. However, it notes that the pause only applies to United States’ foreign development assistance, meaning programs aimed to finance humanitarian aid, economic development, medicine, education, and so on for other countries.
The order says, “90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy. All department and agency heads with responsibility for United States foreign development assistance programs shall immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds to foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors pending reviews of such programs for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy, to be conducted within 90 days of this order.”
A few days after the order was released, on January 26, the American State Department released an official statement saying that Secretary Rubio “has paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for review.”
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, USAID committed $2.6 billion to Ukraine for humanitarian aid, $5 billion for development, and $30 billion as direct financial support within the organization’s development program.
After the order was released, Ukrainian organizations reported difficulties with projects that were completely or partially financed by USAID. Those are, in particular, projects aimed to provide help to war veterans, medical reform projects, energy sector repair projects, as well as independent media and cultural projects.
Trump’s order didn’t pause military aid to Ukraine
The Order about a 90-day pause doesn’t affect the military aid Ukraine receives within security cooperation with the United States.
The Pentagon, responding to a request from Voice of America, confirmed that: “The security aid to Ukraine isn’t under the restriction of the recent order about the foreign aid because it only covers the development programs, not military aid.”
The Pentagon said that the contracts for manufacturing weapons for Ukraine under the USAI program approved by Biden’s administration are still active, as well as other remaining and earlier approved supplies of weapons within the US programs under PDA.
The information was also confirmed on January 25 by the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a briefing during a meeting with President of Moldova Maia Sandu.
“I know that there was a limitation of humanitarian programs, programs for institutions all over the world. I am focused on military aid. It hasn’t been stopped,” Zelenskyy said.
Conclusion: Manipulation
Author: Anna Ormanzhy
Hi, it’s Yana, the editor for Gwara’s international version. I’ve translated this piece for you. Trump’s order hasn’t put a stop to military aid to Ukraine—and that’s a huge relief (and that’s an understatement)—but our Kharkiv-based media, like many media in Ukraine, took a heavy hit because of the freeze. 60% of our grant money came from America. We’ll survive—as our chief editor Serhii says, this can’t be worse than March of 2022. But it’s gonna be tough. Please consider supporting our newsroom—and our fact-checking department—on Patreon, BMC, or PayPal. Thank you.
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