Lawyers for the Trump administration said on Wednesday that it was ending nearly 10,000 U.S. Agency for International Development and State Department contracts and grants, including efforts to combat H.I.V. that had previously been exempted from a foreign aid freeze.
The cancellations were the administration’s latest move to gut U.S. spending overseas as it faced off with a federal judge who earlier this month ordered a temporary resumption of foreign aid frozen on President Trump’s first day in office.
Administration lawyers revealed the cuts in a Wednesday filing to the judge that also said U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department would not be able to meet an 11:59 p.m. deadline the judge had set for the agencies to release funds for foreign aid work already completed.
The administration actions stunned diplomats and aid workers already reeling from mass firings at U.S.A.I.D., which funds food, health, development and democracy programs abroad, and which the Trump administration has systematically dismantled.
Several aid workers and U.S.A.I.D. officials said that at least some money for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, had been eliminated, including for elements of the program previously deemed essential and exempted from the aid freeze.