Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement this week.  

US Government officials have added new waivers to blocks on foreign aid as warnings of services in warzones and developing countries are cut. 

A move to end almost all foreign aid spending by the newly-returned Trump administration  has been met with deep concern by charities and international development organisations. 

An initial, limited, list of exceptions was included, but this has now been extended following pushback. 

Earlier this week US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, issued a new waiver for “life-saving humanitarian assistance”, defined as “core life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance”.

However, as not all humanitarian assistance has been cleared, it remains unclear how the new exception will affect organisations working with migrants. 

The latest update states the waiver does not apply to “activities that involve abortions, family planning conferences ... gender or DEl ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life-saving assistance” and that migration and refugee assistance may only be used “for repatriation of third-country nationals to their country of origin or safe-third-country”.

This slight rollback comes after a number of charities in Ukraine, South America and Africa warned their services will be forced to end. Elizabeth Hoffman, North America executive director at One - a campaign for financing and debt relief in poor countries, told the Financial Times: “We are encouraged to hear that there is a waiver process for life saving programmes, but remain concerned that this could get caught up in bureaucratic red tape.”