The battle over USAID
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
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Summary
Today on “Post Reports,” how USAID entered President Donald Trump’s crosshairs. And, how his freeze on foreign aid has affected vulnerable people around the world.
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On the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing foreign aid for 90 days. The suspension was part of the president’s effort to slash public spending, remake the federal government and align foreign policy more closely with his “America First” agenda. And it had near-immediate consequences.
Today on “Post Reports,” The Post’s West Africa bureau chief Rachel Chason relays the fears of a refugee camp coordinator in Mauritania, where more than 115,000 residents rely on American aid.
And, host Martine Powers speaks with national security reporter Missy Ryan about why the Trump administration has focused its sights on the U.S. Agency for International Development, the legal roadblocks they may face, and how an aid freeze could impact the United States' standing around the world.
Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy, with help from Elana Gordon. It was edited by Peter Bresnan, with help from Lucy Perkins, and mixed by Sam Bair. Thanks to Katharine Houreld, Amy Fiscus and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Embara refugee camp is in the Maritania Desert and West Africa. |
| 0:07.0 | It houses more than 115,000 residents. The camp is so large that it's actually Maritania's |
| 0:14.6 | second largest city. Everyone lives in these structures that are basically one-room homes constructed with tin or with wood, |
| 0:23.9 | and some people have lived there for more than a decade while others have just recently arrived. |
| 0:30.4 | And the vast majority of those people are receiving help in some way from the United States. |
| 0:39.4 | Rachel Chasen is the Post's West Africa Bureau Chief. |
| 0:43.5 | She says this camp estimates it gets 30% of its funding from the United States. |
| 0:49.2 | Or at least it did. |
| 0:52.1 | On the first day of his new administration, |
| 0:55.0 | President Donald Trump signed an executive order, |
| 0:58.0 | freezing almost all foreign aid for 90 days. |
| 1:01.9 | After the aid freeze was announced, |
| 1:04.3 | Rachel spoke to the coordinator of the Embara refugee camp, |
| 1:07.9 | a man named Mohamed Ag Mahmud. |
| 1:10.7 | She asked him how the funding freeze would impact the camp. |
| 1:15.0 | Dommage in matter of life rule, |
| 1:17.9 | domage in matter of education, |
| 1:19.6 | domage in matter of health, |
| 1:21.1 | domage in matter of coexistence pacif. |
| 1:23.3 | So what Mohammed told us was that some of the funding cuts |
| 1:26.7 | were virtually immediate. It was that some of the funding cuts were virtually immediate. |
| 1:29.5 | It was the day after the announcement that a school learned that it was going to stop |
... |
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