What Is the Trump Administration Doing With Foreign Aid Money?

Since he returned to office, President Donald Trump’s administration has upended foreign aid. It’s labeled well-established, long-running programs as “not aligned with American interests” and slashed their budgets. Still, the billions of taxpayer dollars Congress has allocated for foreign aid programs must be spent; lawmakers have insisted the government continue to fund humanitarian aid, global health and pro-democracy causes around the world. With most of the old programs now gone, however, we wanted to know: What is the Trump administration doing with that money now? Recently, we published our investigation that found one answer to that question in a little-known bureau of the State Department that has dramatically transformed under Trump. For decades, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rig