The Battle Over USAID Is Heating Up

美国国际开发署之争愈演愈烈

Big Take

新闻

2025-02-14

17 分钟
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President Trump’s attacks on a key international aid agency, USAID, has left its work frozen and kicked off a fierce legal battle between his administration and US courts over its future.  On today’s Big Take DC podcast, we hear from Bloomberg’s Simon Marks and health care workers on the ground in Nairobi about how the fight playing out more than 7,000 miles away is affecting HIV treatment there. And national security editor Nick Wadhams explains why Trump has taken aim at USAID and what a gutting of the agency could mean for US soft power. Read more:  USAID Cuts in Kenya Reveal Risks to Lives and American Influence Worldwide After DOGE's Chaotic USAID Shutdown: Wasted Supplies, Layoffs and Lawsuits See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio news Since his first day in office,

  • President Donald Trump has taken aim at the U.S. agency for International Development,

  • better known as USAID.

  • The whole thing is a fraud.

  • Very little, very little being put to good use.

  • First came his executive order on January 20,

  • putting a 90 day freeze on foreign assistance funded through the agency.

  • Thousands of USAID personnel were put on administrative leave.

  • NGOs and contractors around the world who get funding or work with USAID staff scrambled to make sense of the order.

  • But last week, a federal judge halted Trump's order to put USAID workers on leave.

  • We've also seen at least two other federal judges block broader attempts at freezing federal funding as the battle over USAID's future heats up.

  • Bloomberg reporter Simon Marks, who's based in Nairobi,

  • says the ripple effects are already palpable.

  • A lot of people in Kenya are hopeful that some of this funding can be re established.

  • But in a period where there's a lot of doubt, people are just putting the brakes on.

  • So the reality on the ground is that the programs have stopped, basically.

  • After the news of Trump's order first broke, Simon visited a health clinic in Nairobi.

  • One of the clinic's main jobs is distributing drugs to combat HIV.

  • More than 1.2 million people in Kenya are being treated for the virus.

  • Preventing its spread,