By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Dan Sagalyn Dan Sagalyn Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/state-department-suspends-nearly-all-u-s-foreign-aid-for-3-months Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio The State Department suspended all foreign assistance around the world for at least three months. That affects tens of billions of dollars on programs that run from military assistance to Ukraine to supporting police in Mexico who interdict fentanyl coming into the U.S. Nick Schifrin reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Geoff Bennett: Late today, the U.S. State Department suspended all foreign assistance around the world for at least three months. It affects tens of billions of dollars for programs that extend from military assistance to Ukraine to supporting police in Mexico who are supposed to stop fentanyl from coming into the U.S.Nick Schifrin is following this all and joins us now.So, Nick, what does this direction actually do? Nick Schifrin: Geoff, the direction is contained in a memo that hasn't been made public. The State Department hasn't even acknowledged it publicly, but "PBS News Hour" obtained the memo.And it says the U.S. government — quote — "shall not provide foreign assistance funded by or through the Department and USAID without the secretary of state's authorization."And — quote — "For existing foreign assistance awards, contracting officers and grant officers shall immediately stop — issue stop-work orders."It says, within 30 days the department will develop review standards. Within 85 days, it will complete a comprehensive review and within 180 days all U.S. foreign assistance will be aligned with President Trump's vision. Bottom line, Geoff, every dollar being spent in terms of U.S. foreign assistance around the world is now being paused.There are a few exceptions, foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt and emergency food assistance around the world. Geoff Bennett: So what programs could this suspension affect? Nick Schifrin: We're talking about everything, including security assistance around the world. So $40 billion is generally the total that's cited in terms of total foreign assistance. About half of that is military assistance. So this affects security assistance or some of the security assistance, certainly, to Ukraine, to Taiwan, to Jordan.These are key U.S. allies and partners around the world. And it's not just weapons. It's things like training. But on top of military assistance, this is what the U.S. government calls security assistance. So that's police. There's some $2 billion for policing around the world. And so, as you identified at the top, some of this is for Mexican police who are supposed to go after the cartels that have just been labeled foreign terrorist organizations, who are supposed to interdict fentanyl that has affected so much — so many communities in the United States.So this really goes so far across the world, West Africa against counterterrorism funding through this program. So there are big questions about how much — how long this will last, how the Trump team will resume it. They say that they simply don't have enough visibility into all of these programs. They need to pause it in order to better understand it and align it with their vision. Geoff Bennett: Nick Schifrin with this late-breaking news, our thanks to you, as always. Nick Schifrin: Thank you. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Jan 24, 2025 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Dan Sagalyn Dan Sagalyn As the deputy senior producer for foreign affairs and defense at the PBS NewsHour, Dan plays a key role in helping oversee and produce the program’s foreign affairs and defense stories. His pieces have broken new ground on an array of military issues, exposing debates simmering outside the public eye. @DanSagalyn