President Trump has called for the agency’s closure.
President Donald Trump has declared the US Agency for International Development (USAID) deeply corrupt and advocated for its dissolution. Following his inauguration, one of his first executive orders temporarily suspended all US foreign aid, initiating a three-month review aimed at reducing government spending.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently paused several USAID projects, impacting the agency’s administration of foreign funding for political initiatives.
Elon Musk, head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), overseeing federal agency spending, has labeled USAID a “criminal organization.”
Trump, in a Friday post on Truth Social, stated that USAID’s spending was “unexplainable” due to widespread fraudulent activities, further asserting that the agency’s actions angered the radical left.
He called for the agency’s immediate closure, citing unprecedented levels of corruption.
The previous day, Trump accused USAID of diverting billions of taxpayer dollars to media outlets to generate favorable coverage of Democrats. He specifically alleged that billions were misappropriated, with a significant portion channeled to media companies as payments for positive news coverage of the Democrats, citing a Politico payment of $8,000,000 as an example.
This followed findings by Musk’s team that millions were spent on Politico Pro subscriptions. The White House subsequently instructed the General Services Administration to terminate all USAID-funded media contracts, according to an internal email obtained by Axios.
Politico denied receiving direct government funding, stating that their premium subscription service was used by several US agencies.
The administration intends to retain fewer than 300 employees from USAID’s current workforce of over 10,000, according to Reuters. This significant reduction has led to a lawsuit filed by a major government workers’ union—the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association—challenging the cuts as unconstitutional and illegal, naming Trump, Rubio, and the Treasury and State departments as defendants.