The Trump administration's decision to freeze US international aid and the White House's attacks on the USAID development agency are a boon for authoritarian powers. On Tuesday, February 25, four Serbian democracy NGOs, partly funded by the US until now, were targeted by large-scale police raids as part of a judicial investigation directly inspired by the obsessions of the new US administration.

In a statement to the press, Nenad Stefanovic, Belgrade's public prosecutor, accused the four raided NGOs of possible "misappropriation of US taxpayers' funds," referring to the "doubts about USAID's work" expressed by "the US president, Donald Trump, and the US Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE], headed by Elon Musk."

"It's the first time we've been subjected to something like this, and we increasingly feel as if we're living in Belarus," said Radovan Kupres, a manager at CRTA, one of the four NGOs targeted, reached by Le Monde by phone. "The police are asking to see all the documentation on the projects financed by USAID," he said, while the agents were still in the offices of this association specializing in "the promotion of democratic values," about a third of whose budget has so far come from American sources.

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