How Trump Can Help Africa: Freeze The Funds Stashed Away By Politicians Who Became Excessively Wealthy After Leaving Office
The Oasis Reporters
January 29, 2025
In the face of the freeze on several key funding programs to African nations inclusive, many ordinary people in Nigeria are of the opinion that funds stashed in the US and Europe by some politicians who became stupendously wealthy after leaving office with no other verifiable source of legitimate business should be frozen by the Trump Presidency and used by the government to fund key infrastructural projects that can help unleash growth and well-being of the people.
Here’s the state of things now in Washington DC as reported by Foreign Policy titled:
Massive Freeze
A sweeping pause on U.S. federal grants, loans, and other financial assistance was set to go into effect at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, but a federal judge in the District of Columbia issued a “brief administrative stay” to halt the order for at least a few days. According to a two-page memo from Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the freeze was intended to limit programs targeted by President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders. But democracy activists and legal experts have argued that the freeze is unconstitutional.
Specifically, the freeze would implicate foreign aid; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; “woke gender ideology”; and climate spending, which collectively total billions of government dollars each year. “This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Assistance received directly by individuals—such as Medicare, Social Security benefits, food stamps, and federal student loans—would not be impacted.
Details on how vital agencies would be hit, though, remain murky. More than 20 states reportedly could not draw down Medicaid funds from their systems on Tuesday, despite one official telling the Washington Post that the health insurance agency was “not the intended target.” Medicaid cost $618 billion last fiscal year and serviced more than 72 million people. Leavitt said that she was unclear on whether Medicaid benefits would be cut off.
“In the event of a substantial hit to Medicaid funding, millions of people, including many who voted for President Trump, would lose health insurance,” said Nathan Gusdorf, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute.
The National Education Association also denounced the freeze, as schools across the country fear that their Title I funding will be halted and the National Head Start Association, which serves nearly 800,000 low-income children up to age 5 and their families, learns that its agency is among those affected.
On the world stage, foreign partners expressed shock and concern over the White House’s freeze. Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office that paused all U.S. foreign development assistance for 90 days. Tuesday’s memo further targets agencies that conduct global humanitarian work, including the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has been instructed to cancel existing appointments, turn patients away from clinics, and stop disbursing HIV medications even if the drugs are already on site.
The United States is the world’s biggest foreign aid donor. Without Washington’s support, foreign partners “do not know what to do because their lifesaving mission and commitment has been breached,” said Asia Russell, executive director of Health Gap.
Legislators, nonprofits, and activists filed several lawsuits on Tuesday to try to block Trump’s order. Among those include a coalition of attorneys general representing California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. “My office will be taking imminent legal action against this administration’s unconstitutional pause on federal funding,” New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote on social media.
On Tuesday, several nonprofits sued the Trump administration for allegedly violating the Administrative Procedure Act, saying the order gave agencies “barely twenty-four hours’ notice, devoid of any legal basis or the barest rational[e].” Such organizations usually make budget decisions years in advance. Four other progressive groups also filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging the memo, calling it “arbitrary, capricious, [and] an abuse of discretion.”
Additional reporting from FP (Foreign Policy).
