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Before Peter Marrocco was chosen to dismantle the entire US foreign aid sector on behalf of President Donald Trump, he was a State Department official for the diplomatic mission.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, Marrocco was a senior political appointee tasked with promoting stability in areas with armed conflict. That summer he took a two-week trip to the Balkans, visiting several Eastern European countries that were touted as an effort to “oppose violent extremism and strengthen inter-religious dialogue.”
At the time, the US was trying to maintain the fragile peace agreements that supported brokers 20 years ago in the region. The Balkans still live in the shadows of the Bosnian War. This is a conflict in the 1990s between different ethnic religious groups in the region that led to the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people, including thousands of Muslim civilians massacred by the Serbian army.
To avoid compromising such sensitive international relations, American diplomatic work is carefully prescribed, even to those American officials meet. It should be avoided, like politicians under the Ministry of Finance’s sanctions for corruption and war crimes.
On a 2018 visit to the Balkans, Marrocco secretly met officials who the US government deemed to be off limits without obtaining the highest level of approval. These politicians have worked for many years to promote the Christian Bosnian Serbian province, rebelling against their country’s constitution and undermining the American-backed peace agreement. Propublica pieced together episodes from interviews with seven current and former US officials.
One official said among the attendees was Milorado Dodik. This is because Dodik, the leader of the wider domestic political region, actively thwarted America’s efforts to prevent bloodshed under US sanctions by the Trump administration at the time. (Officers interviewed for this article requested anonymity for fear of retaliation from the administration.)
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Dodik has since been called “pro-Lucia, anti-Western, anti-American” in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and is currently under new sanctions for corruption. He also vowed that the United States would tear the country apart, rather than uniting it.
Maureen Cormack, then the US ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, discovered that a meeting took place and at the end of his visit he confronted Marrocco at the embassy. Marrocco initially broke down before allowing the gathering, officials said. Cormack was furious and uttered a sharp reprimand, officials said. Cormack did not respond to repeated requests for comments.
Marrocco quickly left the country. A year later, he was not working for the State Department.
It is not clear that he had spoken with the Bosnian separatists. However, the conference itself provided legitimacy to far-right politicians who promoted the Christian state and undermine American foreign policy, experts and officials said.
“He has strengthened the entire political trajectory that is conflicting with what the US is trying to do,” one US official told Propoblica.
After the State Department, the Trump administration sent Maroc to senior positions at the U.S. International Development Agency, where he tried to delay or suspend dozens of programs, including programs that benefited the unified governments of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and better aligned. and tried to reform the institution. In his version of our foreign policy. The agenda, a former colleague told Propovica, was military, Christian nationalist. Complaints about Marocco have been so wary of government leaders that they have cut their duties significantly in the few months of the administration’s decline.
Marrocco’s turbulent tenure in the last Trump administration sheds light on his current efforts to destroy America’s foreign aid system both inside and outside. Current and former officials see it as a campaign of retaliation against those who opposed his previous work and an opportunity to fulfill his most controversial policies by interfering with officials who interfere with him.
Marrocco is currently the Director of Foreign Aid for the State Department, delegated the authority of USAID’s delegation administrator, leading two agencies that previously rejected him. And unlike last time, Marrocco currently has no tension or answers to a small number of people in the administrative sector other than Trump himself.
Shortly after taking office last month, Marrocco drafted an order to close all USAID programs and freeze foreign aid. He is leading an effort to place almost all of the agency’s staff on administrative leave, although the court temporarily lifted many of them. Despite the State Department’s claim that the exemption “allows the authorization of work that includes core lifesaving medicine, health services, food, shelters and substance support, according to interviews with dozens of government officials and non-governmental organizations. , Many of USAID jobs have not resumed.
“That’s an exact repetition of what he did, but it’s on a massive scale,” said a former USAID official who worked with Marrocco in his previous stint in the government. “He had no problem stopping foreign aid. …He came in and said, “We’re going to stop all programming and stop everything that’s going on in the field.” ”
Marrocco and the State Department did not respond to a detailed list of meetings or questions about his views. Dodik didn’t respond either.
The Maroccan conference wasn’t just about diplomatic mistakes in his turbulent career.
During a trip to Serbia, Marocco will be on his own to visit Srebrenica, where more than 8,000 Muslims were killed during the Bosnian genocide, according to two officials familiar with the incident. He invited Alexandervic, the president of the country. It was considered very inappropriate – the Serbs of Bosnia and Serbian paramilitary forces massacred those buried there – the invitation was not approved by the US ambassador.
In 2020, the Trump administration appointed Marrocco to USAID, the world’s largest foreign aid organization. As an assistant to the manager in charge of the Department of Conflict Prevention and Stabilization, he said, according to interviews with previous subordinates and superiors, he wanted to reorient his work solely towards the national security interests of his brand. That confusing the staff. The complaint, known as the challenge cable, stayed overnight against him within three months of his participation. Some said he frequently supported programs that benefited Christian minorities overseas.
Marrocco told his subordinates he disagreed with many of USAID’s traditional “soft power” approach to diplomacy, ordering a broad but vague review of the agency’s program, claiming that he personally approves costs over $10,000. Officials said.
Those who worked with him throughout the government were particularly wary of comments he made during private conversations when discussing American foreign policy. These officials told Propublica that Marrocco is questioning whether USAID should be a fundraising program to combat racist nationalism and hate speech abroad.
While he was at the agency, he frequently expressed his desire to cut programs he didn’t like or understand, his former colleague said. In an internal cable submitted to the institutional leaders, they attempt to withhold parliamentary approved funds for most programs in which Marocó supports democracy and fair elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that He accused them of trying to redirect money towards dealing with Islamic extremism.
The cable warns that Marrocco has “continued to rapidly deteriorate operational capabilities and strategic effectiveness,” and the program will be irreversibly damaged “at a significant financial cost to American taxpayers.” It warns that there is a risk.
The diplomat said his efforts undermined strategic interests for the region and by supporting one religion over another, Cable said it was likely that he violated the constitutional religious freedom clause. I stated. They wrote in Cable that his actions “risk the tension between Bee’s sectarian tensions by affirming the story of one side and criticizing the other.” I used it and wrote it. Bosnia is about 50% Muslims with a minority group of Serbian Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholic Croatians.
“He had it for Bosnia,” said a former USAID official.
Marrocco’s short time at USAID was the last of four employment at four agencies, including the Pentagon and the Department of Commerce.
Marrocco rebelled inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to footage collected and analyzed by online groups. He has not been charged with a crime and has not responded to multiple requests for comments about his role that day, but he is calling the charges.[p]Etty Smear’s tactics and hopeless personal attacks by politicians with no solution. ”
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Currently, non-government experts believe that Marrocco is primarily adjusting the new Trump administration’s foreign aid policy themselves. His official position is the Director of Foreign Support at the State Department, and he also has the authority of the USAID’s Deputy Administrator. “Now he is the most important person in the State Department,” one official observed.
Marocco’s rapid fire attack on USAID has recently been under legal surveillance after dozens of employees and organizations filed lawsuits and tried to reverse his most consequential changes. Judges have been at least temporarily restrained in the widespread use of administrative leave for thousands of employees across the agency, and governments seeking to restore funded and approved programs before Trump’s inauguration. I instructed the agency.
Marrocco defended his drastic takedown as a necessary measure to eradicate government waste and support Trump’s agenda to make America safer and more prosperous.
“His idea was that the people in the government weren’t staying with the correct theory,” another official told Propoblica. “Well, we know how far he goes.”
Pratheek Rebala and Alex Mierjeski contributed to the research.
Is there any information about government officials who are leading US foreign policy? If so, contact Brett Murphy on Signal at 508-523-5195 and signal Anna Maria Barry-Jester at 408-504-8131.
