Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

A di­rec­tive by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion or­der­ing a tem­po­rary halt to fed­er­al as­sis­tance pro­grammes was re­voked yes­ter­day amid wide­spread con­cerns and crit­i­cisms. How­ev­er, the pres­i­dent’s ex­ec­u­tive or­ders freez­ing for­eign as­sis­tance re­main in ef­fect.

The de­vel­op­ment comes a day af­ter the freeze was sched­uled to go in­to ef­fect. It was stayed by a fed­er­al judge un­til at least Mon­day af­ter an emer­gency hear­ing re­quest­ed by non-prof­it groups that re­ceive fed­er­al grants.  

In­ter­na­tion­al re­ports ref­er­enced a copy of a memo af­ter the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s move to halt spend­ing ear­li­er this week pro­voked a back­lash. In the memo dis­trib­uted to fed­er­al agen­cies, Matthew J Vaeth, act­ing di­rec­tor of the White House Of­fice of Man­age­ment and Bud­get, said that OMB mem­o­ran­dum M-25-13 “is re­scind­ed.”

Yes­ter­day, Karo­line Leav­itt, the White House’s spokes­woman, told re­porters the move sim­ply meant a re­scind­ing of the orig­i­nal Mon­day di­rec­tive. Leav­itt added that ef­forts aimed to “end the egre­gious waste of fed­er­al fund­ing” will con­tin­ue.

When con­tact­ed, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne main­tained the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on the mat­ter.

“The Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca ex­er­cis­es the sov­er­eign right to re­view and ad­just the poli­cies and pro­grammes that shape its tech­ni­cal and func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion and as­sis­tance ini­tia­tives with the rest of the world. Part­ner na­tions such as Trinidad and To­ba­go, and oth­ers in the de­vel­op­ing world, must en­gage in care­ful analy­sis and pru­dent and mea­sured ad­just­ment where nec­es­sary,” he said.

“These mat­ters will oc­cu­py Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment at the up­com­ing Heads meet­ing in Bar­ba­dos.” 

Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty founder Rhon­da Main­got said she is braced for the even­tu­al fall­out which will af­fect the NGO’s ef­fort to as­sist vul­ner­a­ble groups.

“For us, of course, it will be our refugee and mi­grant pro­grammes that we have here, cer­tain­ly it will be im­pact­ed,” she said. Main­got said she was not sur­prised by the de­vel­op­ment. 

Gov­ern­ment min­istries with part­ner­ship pro­grammes re­main vig­i­lant.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as new and evolv­ing and said “any com­ment will be pre­ma­ture.”

So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Min­is­ter Don­na Cox said there are no pro­grammes at her min­istry.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said re­gion­al pro­grammes on vi­o­lence and crime could be im­pact­ed.

He said, “US Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID) has spent al­ready a con­sid­er­able amount in the Caribbean re­gion do­ing an 11-coun­try study on crim­i­nal gangs. The aim of it, where they were head­ing, was to fund and put an in­ter­ven­tion in place to deal with gang vi­o­lence in these coun­tries.

“Sev­er­al com­pa­nies had al­ready be­gun work, in­clud­ing UWI, with sev­er­al Amer­i­can firms de­vel­op­ing strate­gies to re­spond to that call when it is re­leased, some­thing like this puts a com­plete stop to, not just pro­grammes on the ground, but pro­grammes that were go­ing to hap­pen.”

In an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith ar­gued that Trinidad and To­ba­go should not be de­pen­dent on for­eign aid to en­hance its se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.