US suspends all funding to Bangladesh under USAID after president Donald Trump’s executive order

OpIndia : United States Agency for International Development (USAID) directed its implementing partners to immediately halt all the existing contracts, grants, and assistance programmes in Bangladesh citing an executive order by President.

Within five days of swearing in as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump passed an executive order immediately suspending all US operations in Bangladesh. In an order dated January 25, 2025, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) directed its implementing partners to immediately halt all the existing contracts, grants, and assistance programmes in Bangladesh citing an executive order by President Trump.

USAID Bangladesh order (via 𝕏)

“The letter serves as a directive to all USAID/Bangladesh Implementing Partners to immediately stop, cease and/or suspend any work performed under your respective USAID/Bangladesh contact, task, order, grant, cooperative agreement or other acquisition or assistance instrument”, read the notice.

It further states that “Partners shall take all reasonable steps to minimize the incurrence of costs allocable to their awards. Partners shall not resume work under their awards until notification has been received in writing from the Contracting/Agreement Officer that this award Stop Work Order / Suspension has been cancelled.”

The US is the leading contributor of humanitarian assistance in response to the Rohingya crisis and has contributed around $2.4 billion since 2017. The development comes as a major setback for the Muhammad Yunus-led Bangladesh government as the country is already facing major financial crisis.

The suspension reportedly is part of a broader review of foreign aid allocation being carried out under a comprehensive ‘stop-work’ order issued by the US State Department on Friday. The order drafted by the Department’s foreign assistance office and approved by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio affects all existing foreign assistance with the exception of military financing to Israel and Egypt. No specific reasons were provided for the order.

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