Trump’s US aid freeze will drive migration from Latin America, experts warn
Trump’s US aid freeze will drive migration from Latin America, experts warn
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Abrupt decision to pause all foreign aid could exacerbate violence in region already struggling with organized crime. The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to immediately pause all US foreign aid programmes could exacerbate violence in Latin America, driving more migration from a region already struggling with the rise of organised crime, experts have warned.
The world’s largest aid provider by far, the US disbursed $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to South American countries in the 2023 financial year, funding a broad range of projects, including humanitarian, military, environmental and economic aid. But programmes around the world have been frozen since the US president suspended almost all US foreign aid for at least 90 days to review whether they are “aligned” with the interests of his new administration.
At least three humanitarian organisations have suspended support operations for more than 41,000 people displaced by a recent outbreak of guerrilla violence in Colombia. Another programme aimed at finding jobs to integrate hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants into Colombian society was also paralysed.
In Brazil, two organisations working to assist Venezuelans fleeing Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship shut down their operations and a programme aimed at tackling the commercial sexual exploitation of children was ordered to stop. On Tuesday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio issued a new waiver for “life-saving humanitarian assistance”, which he defined as “core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance”.
