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Marco Rubio and Donald Trump at the University of Miami before the start of a Presidential Primary Debate on March 10, 2016 (Johnny Louis/ AP Images)
A senior official with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was placed on leave Sunday after sending a memo warning that the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid and mass firings have created a situation that “will no doubt result in preventable death, destabilization, and threats to national security on a massive scale.”
Nick Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for USAID Global Health, was placed on leave by the Trump administration within an hour of sharing the seven-page memo with staffers, according to a report from Reuters.
When the administration implemented its across-the-board freeze on federal aid in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a temporary waiver instructing that “lifesaving humanitarian assistance programs” should continue. The waiver included “essential medicines, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance.”
However, as the administration continued to dismantle the agency, such lifesaving aid in many cases has not been exempted or resumed, the memo states, unambiguously blaming the new “political leadership” for the failures.
“USAID’s failure to implement lifesaving humanitarian assistance under the waiver is the result of political leadership at USAID, the Department of State, and DOGE, who have created and continue to create intentional and/or unintentional obstacles that have wholly prevented implementation,” Enrich wrote. “These actions include the refusal to pay for assistance activities conducted or goods and services rendered, the blockage and restriction of access to USAID’s payment systems followed by the creation of new and ineffective processes for payments, the ever-changing guidance as to what qualifies as ‘lifesaving’ and whose approval is needed in making that decision, and most recently, the sweeping terminations of the most critical implementing mechanisms necessary for providing lifesaving services.”
According to Enrich, the Trump administration’s decisions have ultimately resulted in “the U.S. Government’s failure to implement critical lifesaving activities.” The Bureau for Global Health identified 72 “lifesaving” programs that remained unfunded as of Sunday, NBC News reported.
In court documents filed last week, the Trump administration said that Rubio and one of his top aides, Peter Marocco, had performed a review of USAID foreign aid programs and decided to cut about 90% of them.
Enrich wrote that on Feb. 11, an adviser for the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent an email “warning him” to stop reviewing foreign aid awards slated for termination, even if they provided lifesaving care, saying it was “delaying the timely processing of these terminations notices” which was “unacceptable.”
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“All or nearly all of the awards needed to implement lifesaving humanitarian assistance were terminated on or before Feb 27th,” the memo states. “The number of deaths attributable to the loss of USAID funding and support is not known at this time.”
About 20 minutes after Enrich’s email went out to current staffers as well as those recently terminated or placed on leave, he was informed that he too had been placed on leave, Reuters reported. An unnamed person “familiar with the matter” told the news outlet that the decision to oust Enrich had been made several days before he sent the email.