Before Peter Morocco was elected to dismantle the entire foreign aid sector in America on behalf of President Donald Trump, he was an official of the State Department for the diplomatic mission.
In 2018, during the first term Trump, Morocco was a senior political purpose that instructed stability in areas with armed conflict. That summer, he made a two -week trip to the Balkans, visiting several Eastern European countries that it was advertised as an effort to “resist violent extremism” and “strengthen inter -religious dialogue”.
At the time, the United States tried to maintain a gentle peace agreement that helped the broker two decades earlier in the region. The Balkans still live in the shadows of the Bosnian War, the conflict of the 1990s between the distinguished ethno-religious groups of the region, which led to the deaths of 100,000 people, including thousands of Muslim civilians who were developed by Serbs.
In order to avoid compromising such delicate international relations, American diplomatic work is carefully intended, even before the US officials meet – and those they should avoid as politicians under the treasury sanctions for corruption or war crimes.
During the visit to the 2018 Balkans, Morocco secretly met with officials whom the US government determined that they were without the highest level of approval: the ethno -national Bosnian Serbian leaders of the separatists. These politicians have worked for years to challenge the constitution of their country and undermine a peace treaty supported by the American, seeking to promote the Christian Bosnian Service. Propublica compiled an episode along with an interview with seven current and former US officials.
Among those present were Millaras Dodik, according to one of the officials. Leader of the political region in a broad nation, Dodik at the time Under US sanctions Trump administration for active obstacles to US efforts to prevent more bloodshed. .
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Dodik has since called himself “pro-Russian, anti-Western and anti-American” Meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and now under new sanctions for accusations of corruption. Has it too cry To break the country rather than allow the US to unite it.
Morin Kormak, then the US ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, found that the meeting took place and collided with Morocco at the Embassy at the end of her visit. The representative, before finally admitting the meeting, Morocco initially a demur. The feed was angry, releasing a sharp reproach, the official said. Cormack did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Morocco soon left the country. A year later, he no longer worked in the State Department.
What he discussed with the Bosnian separatists is unclear. But the meeting itself provided the legitimacy of far -right politicians who push the Christian state and undermined US foreign policy, experts and officials said.
“It has strengthened the entire political trajectory that is anti -thetestical because the US is trying to do,” said one of the US propublica officials, “supporting a peace agreement.”
After the State Department, the Trump administration sent Morocco to his senior position at the US Agency for International Development, where he tried to detain or stop dozens of programs – including those who used the only government of Bosnia and Herzegovina – and rethinking the agency for better arrangement with his version . That agenda, said a former colleague, said Propublica, was openly militaristic and Christian nationalist. The complaints that Morocco are so disturbed by the leaders of the agencies that they have significantly reduced his duties in the famous months of the administration.
The rapid stay of Morocco during the last Trump administration illuminates its current efforts to destroy the US foreign aid system from within. The current and former officials view this as a repayment campaign against those who opposed his previous work, as well as the opportunity to fulfill his most controversial policy through side bureaucrats that prevent him.
Morocco is now a foreign aid director to the State Department and was delegated by the power of the USAID deputy administrator – helping to manage two agencies who previously rejected it. And unlike the past, Morocco is now without austerity and response to few of the executive, except Trump himself.
Immediately after the inauguration last month, Morocco made an order, stopping all USAID programs and freezing foreign aid. He headed the efforts to place almost all the agency staff on an administrative vacation, although the courts have temporarily raised many of them. According to an interview with dozens of state -owned workers and non -governmental organizations, most of the USAID work has not resumed, despite the State Department’s statement that the refusal allows you to work with “basic rescue medicine, medical services, nutrition, shelter and help on substances” to continue.
“This is a clear repetition of what he did, but on a scale,” said a former high -ranking USAID official who worked with Morocco during his previous government. “He had no problems stoping foreign assistance … … he came in, he said,” We will stop all programming, stop everything that is happening in the field. “
Morocco and State Department did not answer a detailed list of questions about the meeting or its views. Dodik also did not answer.
Morocco’s meeting was not the only diplomatic wrong step in his stormy career.
During his trip to Serbia Morocco, he invited President Alexander Vuchich to visit Srebran, where more than 8,000 Muslims were killed during the incident. It is considered very inappropriate – the Bosnian Serbian and Serbian paramilitary forces that were developed by people buried there – the invitation was not approved by the US ambassador.
In 2020, the Trump administration appointed Morocco in USAID, the world’s largest organization of foreign aid. As an assistant administrator engaged in the Bureau of Prevention and Stabilization of Conflict, he was embarrassed by staff trying to refocus the work solely to his US national security brand, said in an interview with former subordinates and chiefs, as well as an official complaint known as disagreeing cable , filed against him within three months after he entered. Some said they often prefer programs that benefited Christian minorities abroad.
Morocco told his subordinates that he did not agree with the most traditional “soft power” approach to diplomacy and ordered a broad but vigorous review of the agency’s programs, insisting that he personally approved any cost over $ 10,000, officials said.
Those who worked with him throughout the government were especially disturbed by the comments he did during private conversations when discussing US foreign policy. These officials said Propublica that Morocco questioned whether USAID should be programs of financing racist nationalism and the language of hatred abroad.
While he was in the agency, he often expressed, wishing to reduce the programs that he did not like or understood, his former colleagues said. In the internal cable provided by the agency’s leader, they accused Morocco of trying to abandon Congress, approved by most programs that support democracy and fair elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and redirect the money to solving Islamic extremism.
This cable warns that “Morocco continues to degrade” operative capacity and strategic efficiency, and that the programs risk irreversibly damage “significant financial costs to American taxpayer.”
The diplomats said his efforts undermined the US strategic interests in the region and, preferring one religion over another, probably made the Constitution Constitution, according to the cable. They were concerned that his actions “The risk is aggravated by the tense tensions of the Beham, confirming the narrative of one side while stigmatizing,” they wrote in the cables, using the abbreviation for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia accounts for about 50% of Muslims with a high minority that Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholic are steep.
“He had in Bosnia,” said a former USAID official, “and I didn’t know why at the time.”
A short time Morocco in USAID has become the last four jobs in four agencies, including the Pentagon and the Ministry of Commerce.
Further Morocco was spotted in the US Capitol During January 6 2021 uprisingAccording to the personnel, collected and analyzed Internet band. He was not accused of the crime and did not answer numerous requests for comments about his role that day, though he has called Allegations “(P) Mazak tactics and desperate personal attacks without decisions.”
Currently, government experts and abroad believe that Morocco is organizing a foreign aid policy of the new Trump administration in many respects. His official post – Director of Foreign Aid in the State Department, and the powers of the Deputy Administrator USAID were also delegated. “He is now the most important person in the State Department,” one official said.
Morocco’s quick attack on USAID in recent days after dozens of employees and organizations have filed lawsuits, trying to change their most subsequent changes. The judges have at least temporarily headed the widespread use of administrative leave for thousands of employees at the agency and ordered the agency to restore programs that were funded and approved before Trump’s inauguration.
Marocco has defended its extensive removal as the necessary measure to eradicate state waste and maintain Trump’s agenda to make America safer and prosperous.
“His thinking was that the residents of the government did not perform the right theory,” another propublica official said. “Well, now we know how far he is ready to go.”
Pratheek Rebala and Alex Merzheski have made research.
Do you have information about the US foreign policy? If so, please refer to Britta Murphy at the signal by phone 508-523-5195 or Anna Maria Barry-Chester by phone 408-504-8131.
