IN GHANA and Kenya, insecticide and mosquito nets sit in warehouses because US officials haven’t approved urgent anti-malaria campaigns.

In Haiti, a group treating HIV patients awaits US permission to dispense medicines that prevent mothers from giving the disease to their children.

In Myanmar, where famine looms and the US is the single largest aid donor, one humanitarian worker described the situation as “mayhem.”

Nearly three weeks into US President Donald Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid, life-saving programs across the globe remain shut as humanitarian workers struggle to secure US government waivers meant to keep them open, dozens of aid workers and United Nations (UN) staff told Reuters.

After Mr. Trump announced the 90-day freeze on Jan. 20, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued waivers for what he called “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” which included “core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”

But aid workers and UN officials said the waivers had sparked widespread confusion, along with fears that their US funding would never be restored.

They said they couldn’t restart work without first confirming with their US counterparts whether specific programs qualified for exemption. This was proving nearly impossible, they said, due to a communication breakdown with US officials, some of whom had been fired or barred from talking.

The breakdown appeared partly by design. On Jan. 31, staff at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), once the main delivery mechanism for American largesse, were told not to communicate externally about the waiver and what it may or may not include, according to a previously unreported recording of the meeting reviewed by Reuters.

The US State Department and White House did not respond to requests for comment.

The spiraling consequences of the aid freeze in developing countries underline the real-world harms from Mr. Trump’s upending of decades-old US initiatives designed to build global alliances by making America the world’s most generous superpower and largest single aid donor.

Aid workers had a list of urgent questions going unanswered. Among them: Which programs could continue? What qualifies as life-saving aid? Food? Shelter? Medicine? And how do they keep people from dying when almost every aid service has been shut at once?

With little guidance from US officials, aid workers said their organizations erred on the side of caution and closed programs rather than incur expenses that the US government might not reimburse, the aid workers said. Some described how US partners — often people they had worked with for years — no longer answered their phones or e-mails.

One Geneva-based aid official who reached US officials was stunned by their response. “We asked: Can you tell us exactly which programs we need to stop? Then we got a message saying ‘no more guidance is forthcoming’. This leaves us in a situation where you have to make a choice of which program is ‘life-saving’,” the official said. “We don’t have money to pay for it ourselves. We can’t spend money we don’t know if we have.”

The turmoil was particularly acute at USAID, now in disarray and targeted for closure as a “criminal organization” by Mr. Trump’s government efficiency tsar, the billionaire Elon Musk.

In his executive order, Mr. Trump said the US “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy” were “in many cases antithetical to American values.” He ordered the 90-day pause pending a review on whether aid was consistent with his “America First” foreign policy.

Most of those who spoke to Reuters requested anonymity, fearful of antagonizing the Trump administration and jeopardizing the possible restoration of aid.

Two workers with aid organizations in Myanmar told Reuters they didn’t know whether US-funded food distribution in the country was covered by a waiver and would continue. One of the workers described the situation as “mayhem.” Myanmar faces a severe food crisis due to natural disasters and a spiraling civil war. An estimated two million people in the country are on the brink of famine, according to the UN.

In Africa, humanitarian workers were due to start anti-malaria spraying campaigns this month in Ghana and Kenya before mosquito populations explode during the rainy season, but insecticide and mosquito nets are stuck in warehouses, said a USAID contractor.

A USAID memo, dated Feb. 4 and seen by Reuters on Saturday, said “life-saving activities” to address malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases and conditions would be exempt from the freeze. But campaigns to protect millions of people appeared on hold as aid workers sought clarification on when funding would resume and specific malaria programs in Africa could restart, the contractor said.

Malaria, a preventable disease, is caused by parasites transmitted to people by the bites of infected mosquitoes. The vast majority of the world’s 597,000 malaria deaths in 2023 were African children aged under five years old, the World Health Organization said in December.

“There is a small window to do those campaigns which is going to close rapidly,” said the USAID contractor.

Millions of US taxpayer dollars already spent on supplies to fight malaria in Africa could go to waste, aid workers said. Malaria No More, a global nonprofit based in Washington, said the freeze could prevent the distribution of 15.6 million life-saving treatments, nine million nets and 48 million doses of preventative medicine.

The US is the top donor in the global fight against malaria, mostly through the President’s Malaria Initiative, known as PMI, set up under former President George W. Bush in 2005. PMI’s website — which included information on populations at risk of malaria — has been taken down and replaced with a brief statement: “In order to be consistent with the President’s Executive Orders, this website is currently undergoing maintenance as we expeditiously and thoroughly review all of the content.”

“It’s as if all the work . . . has just been erased,” said Anne Linn, a USAID staffer who worked remotely from Montana as a technical advisor and was fired on Jan. 28. “It’s so cruel and senseless,” she said. “The wastefulness of it is staggering to me.”

TURMOIL AT USAID
The problems were exacerbated by turmoil at USAID, whose leaders Mr. Trump has described as “radical left lunatics.”

Mr. Trump’s administration plans to keep 611 staff at USAID out of its worldwide total of more than 10,000, according to a notice sent to the agency on Feb. 5 and reviewed by Reuters.

Washington’s primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by Mr. Musk, a close Trump ally, since the Republican president took office on Jan. 20. Staff have been shut out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington. Mr. Rubio has appointed himself the agency’s acting administrator.

An expert in water and sanitation spoke of “mass confusion” at the USAID’s global health bureau after she and dozens of others were fired on Jan. 28. “It happened so quickly that I had no way of saving e-mails, contacts,” she said. “We were all just thrown away and bulldozed over.”

In Thailand, the aid freeze forced the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds health clinics with US support, to quickly shut down the hospital and clinics it ran in seven refugee camps on the Myanmar-Thai border. IRC was told by US officials they couldn’t reopen before receiving another notification, which hasn’t arrived, said an aid worker.

Many were discharged from the IRC facilities, leaving people including pregnant women and children unable to access medication or medical equipment, said Francois Nosten, director of the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit, a field station in the border camps run by Bangkok’s Mahidol University.

An elderly woman, who had been hospitalized with lung problems and was dependent on oxygen, died four days after being discharged, according to her family. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm her cause of death.

An IRC spokesperson said some refugees had “self-organized” to provide critical services for themselves until aid support was “transitioned” to Thai authorities.

If “you cut all the activities then some people are going to die,” said Mr. Nosten. — Reuters

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister (PM) Shigeru Ishiba expressed optimism on Sunday that his country could avoid higher US tariffs, saying President Donald Trump had “recognized” Japan’s huge investment in the US and the American jobs that it creates.

At his first White House summit on Friday, Mr. Ishiba told public broadcaster NHK, he explained to Mr. Trump how many Japanese automakers were creating jobs in the United States.

The two did not specifically discuss auto tariffs, Mr. Ishiba said, although he said he did not know whether Japan would be subject to the reciprocal tariffs that Mr. Trump has said he plans to impose on imports.

Tokyo has so far escaped the trade war Mr. Trump unleashed in his first weeks in office. He has announced tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, although he postponed the 25% duties on his North American neighbors to allow for talks.

The escalating trade tensions since Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Jan. 20 threaten to rupture the global economy.

Mr. Ishiba said he believes Mr. Trump “recognized the fact Japan has been the world’s largest investor in the United States for five straight years, and is therefore different from other countries.”

“Japan is creating many US jobs. I believe (Washington) won’t go straight to the idea of higher tariffs,” he said.

Mr. Ishiba voiced optimism that Japan and the US can avoid a tit-for-tat tariff war, stressing that tariffs should be put in place in a way that “benefits both sides.”

“Any action that exploits or excludes the other side won’t last,” Mr. Ishiba said. “The question is whether there is any problem between Japan and the United States that warrants imposing higher tariffs,” he added.

Japan had the highest foreign direct investment in the United States in 2023 at $783.3 billion, followed by Canada and Germany, according to the most recent US Commerce Department data.

Mr. Trump pressed Mr. Ishiba to close Japan’s $68.5-billion annual trade surplus with Washington but expressed optimism this could be done quickly, given a promise by Mr. Ishiba to bring Japanese investment in the US to $1 trillion.

On Sunday, Mr. Ishiba identified liquefied natural gas, steel, AI and autos as areas that Japanese companies could invest in.

He also touched on Mr. Trump’s promise to look at Nippon Steel investing in US Steel, as opposed to buying the storied American company — a planned purchase opposed by Mr. Trump and blocked by his predecessor, Joseph Biden.

“Investment is being made to ensure that it remains an American company. It will continue to operate under American management, with American employees,” Mr. Ishiba said. “The key point is how to ensure it remains an American company. From President Trump’s perspective, this is of utmost importance.”

On military spending, another area where Mr. Trump has pressed allies for increases, Mr. Ishiba said Japan would not increase its defense budget without first winning public backing. “It is crucial to ensure that what is deemed necessary is something the taxpayers can understand and support,” he said. — Reuters

MADRID — Leaders of far-right parties in the European Parliament’s third-largest voting bloc, Patriots for Europe, praised Donald Trump’s return to power at a gathering in Madrid on Saturday held under the slogan “Make Europe Great Again.”

The event featured Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Italian deputy premier Matteo Salvini, as well as the leaders of France’s National Rally  Marine Le Pen, and the Netherlands’ PVV party, Geert Wilders.

“The Trump tornado has changed the world in just a few weeks … yesterday we were heretics, today we’re mainstream,” Mr. Orban told around 2,000 supporters, most of whom waved Spanish flags.

All the speakers railed against immigration and most called for a new “Reconquista,” a reference to the Medieval re-conquest of Muslim-controlled parts of the Iberian Peninsula by Christian kingdoms.

Earlier, former Estonian Finance Minister Martin Helme kicked off the rally following a video message by Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. His speech excoriating what he called “leftists” was interrupted by a topless activist from feminist group Femen chanting “Not one step back against fascism” in Spanish before she was ejected.

Other themes included frequent right-wing targets such as “wokism” — a term used pejoratively by some to describe left-leaning political views on race, gender and sexuality — migrant rescue NGOs, European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose names were met with loud jeers.

Patriots was formed after the May 2024 European election and consists of 86 MEPs from 14 countries, representing a combined 19 million votes. Madrid was chosen as venue for their first official summit so that Patriots’ president Santiago Abascal, who leads Spain’s Vox party, could host.

Spain’s ruling Socialist Party said in a statement it rejected what it described as a “coven of ultras”, adding: “They won’t succeed in making their black-and-white world view prevail in this country.”

Vox has steadily gained ground in several polls over the past months. According to the Centre for Sociological Studies, it garners the strongest support among young men, members of the military and law enforcement.

Despite Patriots’ stated goal of unifying Europe’s nationalist conservatives, some of the EU’s most influential parties in that camp — such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, Alternative for Germany and Poland’s Law and Justice — have refused to join. — Reuters