Foreign Affairs

I'm sure the people who discussed and issued the "freeze" ("ban" is a better term - "freeze" can sound like "no increase" ) wanted everything stopped, and worded it so that would be how it was taken. Either planned beforehand, or after complaints, they may have then issued "clarifications" or "waivers"; a few of them may have been fooled into thinking there were always meant to be some exceptions, but if they did, they're too incompetent to be left in charge of important things like USAID.