~400 people were fired in recent days from #humanitarian assistance positions…. ~200 of those were contractors for the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, …& another 200 were part of a unit called the Support Relief Group, a collection of #crisis experts who helped the bureau in responding quickly to #NaturalDisasters & armed conflicts. Now only about a dozen people remain in that group.
In addition, 36 people were fired from the Office of Transition Initiatives, a unit in the agency’s conflict prevention bureau that specializes in helping partner countries with political transitions & #democratic initiatives, said US officials & recent agency employees.
#Trump appointees have fired or put on paid leave thousands of employees of #USAID A task force of young engineers working for #ElonMusk [#DOGE] has shut down many technical systems in the #aid agency & barred employees from their email accounts. #Musk has posted dark #ConspiracyTheories about USAID on social media, asserting with no evidence that it is a “criminal organization” & that it was “time for it to die.”
#Trump Appointees Fire Hundreds at #USAID Working on Urgent #Aid
The firings added to doubts about whether Secretary of #State #MarcoRubio, the agency’s acting head, supports lifesaving #humanitarian assistance, as he has said he does.
#USpol #geopolitics #SoftPower #ForeignPolicy #Diplomacy #TheCrueltyIsThePoint
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/us/politics/usaid-urgent-aid-firings.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
In response, Judge Ali, a Biden appointee, issued a temporary #injunction saying that the #Trump admin could not freeze #ForeignAid spending that predates Trump’s inauguration, nor could it fire or suspend workers associated w/those spending projects.
The ruling reverses a decision that had thrown into turmoil programs that provide #shelter for millions of people & fight #hunger & #illness around the globe.
The idea that a group of the 'great & good' can help the UK engineer an improvement in its 'soft power' seems to me to misunderstand how soft power works.... you don't wield soft power, rather you (global) actions result in soft power when others regard your actions as influential or requiring their adjustment.... so the biggest damage done to the UK's soft power was likely Brexit & no amount of chatting & strategising is going to do much to reverse that!
