‘Further review of the active grant portfolio reveals a significant number of grant programs which remain inconsistent with Administration policies’
The State Department has eliminated $214 million in foreign funding initiatives, nixing 139 taxpayer-funded grants that promoted, among other things, “newsroom sustainability” in Moldova, “media diversity” in the United Kingdom, and “environmental resilience” in Armenia, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
DOGE carried out the “supplemental review of remaining foreign assistance grant programs” after the State Department completed its initial foreign funding review in late February, an internal State Department memo obtained by the Free Beacon shows. Though the initial review saw the agency identify $60 billion worth of foreign grants for elimination, DOGE’s supplemental probe revealed “a significant number of grant programs which remain inconsistent with Administration policies,” particularly those related to “media advocacy programming,” according to the memo.
Axed grants include a $14.6 million program that supported “expanded newsroom sustainability and engagement” in Moldova; a $5.2 million “media diversity” grant that funded an “anti-disinformation program in the United Kingdom”; a $400,000 “Building Environmental Resilience” grant in Armenia; a $1 million grant “channeling gig workers’ rights” in Brazil; and a $750,000 grant for “building the migrant domestic worker-led movement” in Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway over the government.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed off on the cuts Monday night, and they will be “actioned” starting today, according to a senior State Department official.
The move shows that the Trump administration is not yet done taking aim at foreign funding initiatives that it says stray from “life-saving aid and strategic and national security priorities.” The administration paused nearly all U.S. foreign assistance earlier this year as the State Department conducted its review, which was delayed in February amid a court battle that is now resolved. Cuts have particularly targeted the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which saw its spending curbed by roughly 80 percent.
The latest cuts primarily impact the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), a grantmaking body that came under congressional scrutiny in 2022 for offering taxpayer cash to nonprofit organizations engaged in efforts to investigate supposed Israeli war crimes.
“These programs—predominantly administered by DRL—focus on wasteful DEI, censorship, media diversity and advocacy, ‘civic society’ and ‘pro democracy’ programming, fund NGOs whose activities are inconsistent with Administration priorities, and squander taxpayer dollars on wasteful diversity, equity, and sustainability socially oriented programs.”
In addition to the axed media-related programs, grants on the chopping block include a $2.4 million initiative to combat “disinformation through creative content” in Belarus and $900,000 to establish a “place for women to join to organize” in Mauritania.
Additional cuts include a $4.75 million grant funding “American-style higher education” in Kurdistan, a $1.4 million grant to prevent “internet fragmentation” in Brazil, and a $1.1 million grant aimed at “building trust and keeping hope alive” in Sri Lanka, according to the internal State Department memo.
