As the dust settles around the Trump administration’s first week, American Jewish World Service stands with our partners in civil society here in the United States and worldwide against the costly decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign assistance.
For almost 80 years, U.S. aid has delivered enormous influence around the world. Beyond its humanitarian intentions of fighting poverty, building hospitals and schools, and supporting communities struck by disaster, the U.S. has guided international diplomacy, funding justice initiatives in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Buttressed by generations of bipartisan support and nonpartisan civil servants, U.S. foreign aid amounts to less than one percent of all U.S. spending yet has been a source of stability in nearly every country on Earth.
The freeze on international programs came the same day the administration re-instituted the global gag rule. When enacted by Donald Trump in 2017, this policy denied all global health assistance to overseas organizations that counseled patients on or provided abortions, even with their own resources, and even when the procedure was legal in their own countries.
Unmentioned in the discourse surrounding these actions are the effects on community-based organizations. Although many of our grantees do not receive U.S. aid, the damage of Trump’s “America First” ideology transcends our government’s support. Valued community partners will be forced to operate in a climate of fear and surveillance, unable to communicate openly with peers or access a network of referrals for everything from counseling to education to vocational training. As with many of the administration’s actions, its stated goal of advancing American security will have the opposite effect: destabilizing an ecosystem that cultivates prosperity and independence.
As an organization guided by Jewish values and one that believes in the inherent dignity of all people, American Jewish World Service is outraged that the Trump administration moved to politicize and jeopardize the lives of millions of people by upending foreign assistance and reinstating the global gag rule. Strategic foreign assistance is designed to make our world safer, healthier, and more equitable. This latest salvo will not only cause unspeakable harm beyond our borders, but firmly places the U.S. on the wrong side of history.
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