San José, Costa Rica - Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged Tuesday that some aid groups may have intentionally sabotaged projects to make a point after he froze most US assistance.

Rubio doubled down on President Donald Trump's 90-day suspension of assistance after accounts around the world of local aid groups curtailing or stopping life-saving assistance.

"I issued a blanket waiver that said, if this is life-saving programs, OK; if it's providing food or medicine or anything that is saving lives and is immediate and urgent, you're not included in the freeze," Rubio told reporters in Costa Rica.

"I don't know how much more clear we can be than that," he said.

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"I would say if some organization is receiving funds from the United States and does not know how to apply a waiver, then I have real questions about the competence of that organization, or I wonder whether they're deliberately sabotaging it for purposes of making a political point," Rubio said.

Rubio, a day earlier, said he had been made acting head of the US Agency for International Development as Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk look at drastically scaling back aid and merging the organization under the State Department.