The president of the United States, Donald Trump, is considering merging the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) with the State Department to increase its efficiency and ensure that its expense is in line with the agenda of its administration, On Monday he said a senior White House official.
“President Trump has trusted Elon [Musk] To supervise the efficiency of this agency, ”said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added that there were discussions about sending a notification to the United States Congress to inform the legislators of the administration’s plans.
The multimillionaire Musk directs Trump’s impulse to reduce wasteful spending within the federal government. But Musk’s increasingly hard accusations against Usaid, many lodged without evidence, have asked questions about whether their political views are promoting efforts to gut the agency.
The avalanche of events has also underlined Musk’s powerful role in the establishment of Trump’s agenda. Last week, the Musk team in the Government Efficiency Department (Doge) obtained access to the most sensitive payment systems in the United States Treasury and, as Reuters He informed, blocked some employees of the federal staff career of his agency’s own computers.
Hundreds of USAID programs covering billions of dollars in help to save lives worldwide stopped after Trump on January 20 ordered a freezing of most foreign aid in the United States, saying that he wanted to make sure that he is aligned with his “America first” policy.
If the USAID was put under the State Department, it would probably have dramatic consequences for the distribution of the help of the world’s largest individual donor, the United States.
Trump told journalists on Sunday that Useid “has been directed by a lot of radical lunatics.” He added: “We are taking them out, and then we will make a decision.”
Musk said in a broadcast on Monday that Useid was “out of repair” and that Trump agreed that he should close.
In the transmission, Musk said he had argued Usaid in detail with Trump. “I want to be clear,” Musk said. “In fact, I checked with him several times. I said, are you sure? Yeah.”
Rubio becomes Usaid’s head
The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, told reporters in San Salvador that he was now the interim chief of USAID, qualifying the agency “completely insensitive” and accusing the staff of not being “not willing to answer simple questions “On the programs.
During the past week, Mayhem has prevailed at the USAID offices in Washington, DC, where dozens of staff have been presented. During the weekend, two high -level security employees were also licensed after refusing to provide classified documents to Doge employees on the site.
Today, USAID employees were told that their headquarters in the Washington center had been closed for the day.
“In the agency leadership direction, the USAID headquarters in the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, DC, will be closed to the agency’s staff on Monday, February 3, 2025,” an internal email to the USAID staff told the USAID staff, seen by Reuters.
The White House official said that employees were asked to stay at home due to property security concerns.
The row between Doge and USAID staff caused outrage among Democrats. A group of Democratic legislators said they will meet at the 1 PM ET outside the USAID headquarters to protest the closure, calling it “the illegal closure of the Trump and Elon Musk administration.”
In fiscal year 2023, the United States disbursed $ 72 billion of aid world Anticorruption Provided 42 percent of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024.
The State Department issued World Stop Directives after Trump’s freezing order, with the exception of emergency food assistance. The experts warned that the measure runs the risk of killing people.
Three sources familiar with the matter told him Reuters That USAID personal services contractors (PSC), who carry out most of the agency’s humanitarian office, have also been blocked from their government accounts.
“Without PSC, there is no longer functionally an office for humanitarian assistance in Usaid. The exemptions of the Rubio Secretary of State for emergency foods and another urgent assistance are a smoke curtain and a farce if there is no one for the awards to happen, ”said a USAID official.
