The Trump administration has released $5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including funds for USAID and Red Cross programs in Gaza, despite controversy surrounding the two groups.
U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid after taking office on Jan. 20. Since then, however, multiple exemptions have been granted, Reuters reported on Friday, having obtained a list of 243 exceptions approved as of Feb. 13.
Most of the released funds—more than $4.1 billion—were connected to programs involving overseas arms sales and military assistance, or to Trump’s efforts to regain control of the border and fight fentanyl trafficking, according to the report.
However, the United States Agency of International Development, (USAID) programs also received exemptions, including “$78 million for non-food humanitarian assistance in Gaza.”
USAID provides $40 billion in foreign aid, or about 60% of total U.S. foreign assistance, Reuters reported. That makes it the largest aid organization globally, providing 42% of all U.S. assistance, which totaled $68 billion in 2023.
Receipts posted to the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website show it has cut at least $6.5 billion from USAID so far.
DOGE head Elon Musk has called USAID a “criminal organization” and said it was “time for it to die.” “It’s beyond repair,” he said, “a viper’s nest full of radical left Marxists who hate America.”
“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics,” Trump agreed. “And we’re going to get them out.”
Per a White House fact sheet, USAID’s abuse of funds included “$1.5 million to ‘advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,’” “$6 million to fund tourism in Egypt,” “hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations” and “hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria.”
It has sent more than $18 billion to Islamic terror states.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Feb. 10 accused the agency of providing “vast and secret” funding for Hamas following new revelations about USAID’s practices vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians revealed by The Washington Free Beacon.
“USAID flowed uncountable hundreds of millions of dollars toward Hamas that enabled it to launch the attack and keep battling Israel afterwards. They lied about the nature of that aid in public databases, refused to disclose what groups were getting the money, and gave tens of millions in American cash to be distributed without American supervision,” said Cruz.
Also receiving an exemption was $56 million for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) “related to the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas,” the news outlet reported.
The ICRC has come under fire, most recently for participating in grotesque hostage handover ceremonies by Hamas.
An ICRC official could be seen onstage during the handover on Thursday of the bodies of four Israeli hostages, signing off on documents, even though it would later turn out that one of the bodies was not the correct one.
U.S. senators have recently criticized the organization for participating in the ceremonies in Gaza.
Since the war’s start, Israelis have expressed anger at the ICRC for failing to visit any of the hostages to ensure they received basic food and medicine.
That anger intensified as accounts emerged of torture, sexual abuse and lack of food and medical care. Legal action has been taken by some former hostages against the ICRC.
The Geneva-based U.N. Watch also condemned the Red Cross for what it calls blatant bias against Israel.
In a Dec. 11, 2023 survey of ICRC’s social media accounts, U.N. Watch found that of 187 tweets published by its main accounts, “77% were focused on criticizing Israel, expressly or by implication. Only 7% of the tweets criticized Hamas.”