Remigijus Žemaitaitis, the leader of the Nemunas Dawn party, which is part of Lithuania’s governing coalition, has requested information from the US administration about grants provided to non-governmental organisations operating in the country.
His letter later turned out to be an almost identical copy of one sent on Monday by Slovakia’s right-wing Prime Minister Robert Fico.
“To distinguish beneficial projects from undue interference in Lithuania’s internal affairs, it would be appropriate to request that you provide information on grants and subsidies allocated to non-governmental organisations, media outlets, and individual journalists operating in Lithuania,” Žemaitaitis wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk.
In his letter shared on Facebook, he said that the closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) “undoubtedly has an impact on the domestic politics of Lithuania”.
The MP expressed “legitimate concerns” that funds received from USAID “have been used for political purposes in Lithuania, aiming to influence the political system and give preferential treatment to certain parties”. He did not name any specific parties.
The Nemunas Dawn leader also said he is ready to meet with Musk to discuss “this situation and other possible cooperation projects”.
The same words are also in the letter by Fico, which was posted on social media by journalist Birutė Davidonytė, who shared her suspicion that pro-Russian politicians in Europe and Lithuania may be acting in a coordinated way.
USAID has also come under fire from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who called its recipients “foreign agents”.
Asked why his letter was similar to Fico’s, Žemaitaitis told LRT.lt that it was his assistants who wrote it.
“Maybe they found something similar on the internet. It is possible. I more or less told them what the idea should be, what should be written,” the Nemunas Dawn leader said, adding that he knew what he was signing.
Upon returning to the White House, Trump froze US foreign aid for 90 days and effectively dismantled USAID. The temporary funding restrictions have put most of the agency’s programs around the world on hold.
LRT reported last week that the freeze also affected Lithuanian NGOs, as projects funded through the US embassy were cancelled and services and training programs were discontinued.
USAID is the US government’s main international humanitarian aid and development agency. It managed more than 40 billion US dollars in appropriations in 2023, accounting for about 40 percent of the global aid budget.
According to media reports, the Trump administration plans to slash USAID’s staff from over 10,000 to fewer than 300.
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