Associated Press
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and said he would move the 18% of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department.
Rubio made the announcement in a post on X. It marked one of his relatively few public comments on what has been a historic shift away from U.S. foreign aid and development, executed by Trump political appointees at State and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams.
Rubio in the post thanked DOGE and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid.
President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 issued an executive order directing a freeze of foreign assistance funding and a review of all of the tens of billions of dollars of U.S. aid and development work abroad. Trump charged that much of foreign assistance was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.
Rubio’s social media post said that review was now “officially ending,” with some 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs eliminated.
Those programs “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” Rubio wrote.
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping … to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” he said. Democratic lawmakers and others call the shutdown of congressionally-funded programs illegal, saying such a move requires Congress’ approval.
The State Department in one of multiple lawsuits it is battling over its rapid shutdown of USAID had said earlier this month it was killing more than 90% of USAID programs. Rubio gave no explanation for why his number was lower, and no details of what programs were spared or how the State Department would run them.
The dismantling of USAID that followed Trump’s order upended decades of policy that humanitarian and development aid abroad advanced U.S. national security by stabilizing regions and economies, strengthening alliances and building goodwill.
In the weeks after Trump’s order, one of his appointees and transition team members, Pete Marocco, and Musk pulled USAID staff around the world off the job through forced leaves and firings, shut down USAID payments overnight and terminated aid and development contracts by the thousands.
Contractors and staffers running efforts ranging from epidemic control to famine prevention to job and democracy training stopped work. Aid groups and other USAID partners laid off tens of thousands of their workers in the U.S. and abroad.
Lawsuits brought by some of the nonprofit groups and businesses that had partnered with USAID say the form-letter contract terminations purge eliminated even programs that Rubio had said he wanted to save, violated the contract terms and stiffed aid groups and businesses of billions of dollars.
The shutdown has left many USAID staffers and contractors and their families still overseas, many of them awaiting U.S.-paid back payments and travel expenses back home.
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
9 comments
Oscar
March 10, 2025 at 9:55 am
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Time to go department by department and agency by agency to do exactly the same thing. Time to end overbearing federal government and eliminate unelected authoritarian bureaucrats.
Skeptic
March 10, 2025 at 10:26 am
Too true. If we get rid of the FAA, the IRS, Amtrak, Education, National Parks, etc. we can soon meet the Musk/Trump goals of turning the U.S. into the new Sudan. Thought experiment: Do MUSK/Trump (a) intend to drive the U.S. into recession, or (b) have no earthly idea what they are doing? Next question — is this what you voted for? Next time remember — Elections have consequences.
Oscar
March 10, 2025 at 10:32 am
Perhaps you should consider changing you name…. Each part of the government you cite is a complete failure, fiasco and financial debacle. Thank you for proving my point. Keep up the good work! Thankfully your posts don’t have consequences!
Bill Pollard
March 10, 2025 at 10:18 am
The only authoritarians are the ones now in charge of our government. Who was giving Nazi salutes? Not the civil servants being fired, but the overbearing billionaire who thinks he knows everything.
Oscar
March 10, 2025 at 10:34 am
Is that you Rip van Winkle? I guess you missed the last four years of unconstitutional malfeasance by Biden and his cronies…. Stop projecting your inadequacy on others….
Peachy
March 10, 2025 at 10:34 am
The libs and Federal workers that might lose their jobs are crying over this. Welcome to the real world folks. Not one of you shed a tear when private companies have to restructure and reduce head count to stay in business. Federal jobs are not lifetime positions.
Peachy
March 10, 2025 at 10:35 am
Is Rick Whitaker moderating this board again? Why do you continue to erase my valid points?
Oscar
March 10, 2025 at 12:02 pm
Authoritarian leftist always seek to censor opposing views since their moronic positions implode at the slightest critique which is why they necessarily resort to misinformation, propaganda and, eventually, force to impose their will on others.
PeterH
March 10, 2025 at 11:47 am
China is aggressively picking up the humanitarian assistance and good will policies that Rubio and Trump have abandoned.