“This is Trump’s Afghanistan withdrawal,” said one current USAid employee, who was aware of foreign service nationals who have been questioned by investigators since the USAid ban was announced.
“Given how authoritarian governments are increasingly looking to find ways to shut down civil society, including by attempting to delegitimize organizations by equating them with foreign interference, the Trump administration should take greater care to safeguard information in these contexts,” said Michelle Strucke, director of the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Current and former officials at USAid and the state department warned that the lack of support for USAid employees in the field has left them in danger in high-risk environments.
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán has said that his government is going “line by line” through local organisations that received funds from USAid, claiming they were backed by a leftwing conspiracy planning to topple his government.
In Russia, State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said that the government should request a list of people who received funding from USAid and that they should be made to “publicly confess and repent on Red Square”.
