Shortly after becoming the 47th president of the United States, President Trump immediately began implementing his agenda by signing a series of executive orders to be effected immediately.
Among those issued, hours after being sworn in, Trump decreed a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance pending assessments of efficiencies and consistency with his foreign policies.
This decision is set to impact many countries, Kenya included, which depend on foreign aid from the United States.
“The foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values and serve to destabilise the world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries,” he said.
“All department and agency heads responsible for United States foreign development assistance programs shall immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds…no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States,” reads the executive order.
White House neither clarified the countries that were affected nor the programs that were temporarily known. However, over the years it has been consistently known that Kenya is among the countries that receive substantial US foreign aid from international agencies such as USAID.
For example, the US Agency for International Development announced over $126 million in additional food assistance for Kenya in response to the severe drought. This was part of the broader effort where USAID had provided nearly $310 million in humanitarian assistance in 2022 alone.
Trump withdraws US from World Health Organization in day one orders
At his inauguration speech, Trump ushered in his second term in what he referred to as the ‘Golden Age of America’.
Since taking power from former president Joe Biden, he has been on an executive order signing spree since taking power. Here are some of the other confirmed executive orders signed on day one:
- Trump has directed US Agencies to take emergency measures to reduce the cost of living
- Trump has halted the hiring of new IRS agents
- Trump officially withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord
- Trump officially withdrew the United States from the World Health Organization
- Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border
- Trump started firing multiple immigration judges
- Trump signs an executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations
- Trump seeks to officially change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America
- Trump signs order to end all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs by the government within 60 days
- Trump to keep TikTok accessible within the US to facilitate a deal
- Trump signed an order on the death penalty, directing ‘all necessary and lawful action’ so that states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions
