Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively froze most foreign aid.
A lesser-known effect of this 90-day freeze? Funding has been halted for the State Department’s Office of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP), a fairly new office that uses diplomacy to create technological partnerships and address emerging cyber threats.
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According to a new report from The recordThe freeze on foreign aid has crippled the office, which has tens of millions of dollars in funding.
Crushable speed of light
The report notes some of the projects the CDP has worked on, such as deploying a “cyber incident response team” to Costa Rica, training with the Vietnamese government on North Korea’s nefarious cyber activity, and landing of an underwater telecommunications cable in Tuvalu.
In addition to the funding halt, U.S. Special Ambassador for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nate Fick left his position on Monday. Fick was the first cyber ambassador to the US.
Congress created the CDP in 2022 for the United States to establish diplomatic relations around the world with a focus on cyber threats and working together on new technologies. Its more than $90 million in funding comes from the office’s base budget, the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and its Digital Connectivity and Related Technologies Fund.
The CDP last post on your X account was a retweet from the official State Department account welcoming Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to the position. The CDP account has not published a post of its own since January 17, before Trump’s inauguration.