The U.S. State Department abruptly canceled foreign aid programs supporting opposition activists, political prisoners and religious groups in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, raising concerns about a shift in U.S. foreign policy.

Projects supporting political prisoners in Cuba, church groups opposing strongman Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and activists fighting a power grab by Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela were canceled after a State Department review concluded they are not in the “national interest” of the United States.

It didn’t appear to matter that the programs were handled by the International Republican Institute, a non-profit organization linked to the party in power, or that they were focused on promoting democracy in authoritarian countries.

All but three of the Institute’s 95 programs funded with grants from the State Department and the U.S. International Agency for Development have been canceled, according to several sources familiar with the cuts who asked not to be named to discuss the sensitive issue.

The remaining three programs, related to groups in Venezuela, are on pause following an earlier State Department directive to implement President Donald Trump’s broader executive order to freeze all foreign aid funds for 90 days. The rest of the Institute’s 175 programs worldwide are also in limbo because they depend on funding directly appropriated from Congress for the National Endowment for Democracy, which has said it has not been able to access the money.

As a result, 18 programs the International Republican Institute was supporting in Latin America have “gone dark,” either suspended or frozen, one of the sources said. Letters of termination, sent Friday by the State Department and USAID, currently under the State Department, stated the contracts “were not aligned” with the agencies’ priorities and were not “in the national interest” following a review, the source said.

The Institute’s Democratic counterpart, the National Democratic Institute, faces a similar challenge. Sources said about a hundred programs were terminated, and only one program in the region, which focused on Venezuela, remains.

Most employees at both Institutes, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other foreign aid organizations have been furloughed.

The State Department did not immediately answer questions about the contract terminations.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday ordered the administration to disburse a portion of the funds owed for work already done by some of these organizations and contractors receiving foreign assistance awards. However, with so many contracts already canceled and personnel on leave or fired, it is unclear how the government will proceed.

A policy change?

Cuban independent media was also hit hard by the cuts. Decades-old outlets like Cubanet, based in Miami, lost their USAID funding, while others depending on the National Endowment for Democracy are in limbo.

In the past, funding Cuban independent news outlets, which have been critical in exposing Cubans on the island to human rights violations and other government abuses not covered by state media, had been seen as critical to a U.S. policy centered on promoting a democratic transition on the island.

On Tuesday night, the White House’s Rapid Response account on X mentioned a $1.5 million grant to “rebuild the Cuban media ecosystem” as an example of “ridiculous” USAID programs that have been slashed.

In a Senate hearing Wednesday about advancing U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere, U.S. Florida Sen. Rick Scott echoed current views about foreign aid among Trump administration officials in an exchange about how to justify the money spent.

“My problem is I can’t go to Florida and say, boy, I’m excited about how much money we spent on foreign aid because something could happen. Let’s see: the Castro regime still controls Cuba, Venezuela just stole another election, Ortega is getting stronger in Nicaragua,” he said.

The suspension of programs supporting the promotion of democracy in authoritarian countries, a bipartisan U.S. foreign policy for decades, has left experts wondering if the Trump administration has abandoned that goal.

The point was pressed in a call by worried leaders of the International Republican Institute to warn staffers working for Florida’s congressional delegation—the home of the largest Cuban, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan communities—that the organization would not survive for long without the funding, likely a matter of weeks, according to people familiar with the call.

According to the sources, the president of the International Republican Institute, Daniel Twining, said the cuts to democracy promotion would only benefit dictators in places like Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. The cuts risk losing the web of contacts built during years of working in those countries and leaving groups on the ground unprotected from government repression, Twining argued in the call.

Twining confirmed the call to the Herald. Five people with knowledge of its content said he painted a grim assessment of the future of the Institute and its partners on the ground. At least 40 groups working with the Institute in the region had to shut down because of the lack of funding.

Congressional sources worry the sudden policy change could leave opposition figures like opposition leader María Corina Machado in Venezuela more exposed to government violence.

During Wednesday’s Senate hearing. Sen Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that cuts to USAID and other organizations offering foreign assistance conflict with other stated goals in the Trump administration’s policy toward Latin America, particularly with efforts to counter China’s influence.

However, one of the sources who spoke to the Herald said he believed Republicans still support funding democracy promotion efforts in authoritarian nations and that Congress would likely appropriate funds for such programs in the future. The source said Republicans would need to accommodate some Democrats’ demands on this front because they cannot lose all Democratic support in budget negotiations.

Many of the terminated contracts focused on “woke issues,” promoting anti-corruption, supporting independent media, or helping groups in democratic countries, all goals some administration officials “didn’t like,” one source said.

Reached earlier for comment on the pause on foreign aid, U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar from Miami said, “Every dollar spent has to answer these three things: does it make America safer, stronger and more prosperous? I’ve been clear about this and asked the Trump Administration to quickly reinstate Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela programs that align with our national security interests. A free and democratic Latin America means a free and democratic United States of America.”

But Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose South Florida district includes areas with large Venezuelan populations, criticized her Republican colleagues for not doing more.

“It’s unthinkable that House Republicans just stand by as Trump guts decades of investments in Cuban and Venezuelan democracy programs,” she said. “As an appropriator, I’ve fought my whole career to promote human rights and hold these brutal regimes accountable. I’ll continue to fight to restore these funds that protect dissidents, break censorship and deliver hope.”

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