US President Donald Trump said that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is run by "a bunch of radical lunatics" who will fire everyone.
This comes after the Trump administration has already frozen all USAID projects worldwide for three months, except for some strictly humanitarian aid.
The website of this organization, which had an annual revenue of $43 billion, is also inaccessible, and many employees have been fired or sent on forced leave.
This has probably affected hundreds of thousands of people around the world who – from Afghanistan, India, through the Gaza Strip to the Balkans – have collaborated with USAID in one way or another.
Trump's circles are even considering abolishing the entire independent agency. Elon Musk claims that Trump has agreed to this.
The influential Trump whisperer labeled USAID a "snake den of radical Marxists who hate America" and a "criminal organization." He also claimed that USAID used taxpayer money to "fund research into biological weapons, including Covid-19, that have killed millions of people." He did not elaborate on the allegations, which the previous US administration linked to a Russian disinformation campaign.
Several American media outlets, including CNN and the New York Times, reported that Musk's people at USAID headquarters in Washington tried to obtain classified information. Two executives refused and were subsequently fired.
Trouble for many in Serbia
"The chances are less than one percent that they will pay a single dinar in the next three months, even though we have a signed contract," says a DW correspondent from Serbia, whose organization previously received donations through USAID.
"And after that, the chances of money coming from there while Trump is here are minimal," this source adds.
This is how some of the non-governmental organizations and small independent, often local media outlets got into big trouble.
The "Justice for All" project, which was implemented in cooperation with the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM), has already been suspended. Research collectives such as BIRN and the organization that monitors elections and democratic development, CRTA, received money through USAID.
These are often organizations critical of the authorities in Serbia or media outlets that have not been able to be bought by anyone close to the Serbian Progressive Party and that report professionally.
But many point out that the state and local governments have actually received the most money so far.
USAID in Serbia: more than two decades and almost a billion dollars
During 2022, USAID celebrated twenty years of work in Serbia and announced that it had allocated $882 million during that period - for the work of local governments, the purchase of ambulances, and strengthening the economy and the rule of law.
"When you go to court, you will hardly find a single computer, a single chair, a table, anything, that does not have a sticker saying that it was funded by either the EU or USAID," lawyer Mihailo Pavlović, who collaborates with several non-governmental organizations, told N1.
Over the decades, USAID has collaborated with around 500 civil society organizations and around 250 media outlets in Serbia.
They participated in the formation of the National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED), whose senior official was the Speaker of the Parliament, Ana Brnabić.
The gloating of power
However, the authorities in Serbia welcomed the termination of American development aid with joy, with messages that Washington would no longer finance "colored revolutions."
President Aleksandar Vučić has also described the protests against the government he leads as the last gasp before Trump turns off the tap.
"And now it's melting and dissolving in all directions. And the consequences will be incredibly positive, but of course there will be many things that are not easy and not simple, because all sorts of things will come up, and there will be all sorts of things around financing," he said.
Prominent SNS MP and lawyer Vladimir Đukanović called for a "serious investigation" of all projects funded by USAID in Serbia.
DW sources believe that Vučić, through Trump's man Richard Grenell, may have some influence in Washington, especially since he has decided to donate the General Staff land in Belgrade to Trump's son-in-law so that he can build a hotel there.
"If that's the case, then it's unlikely that the Americans will return to funding the civil society sector and media in Serbia during Trump's term," says one of our interlocutors.
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