Less than 300 workers could soon be carrying out the reformed responsibilities of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) since the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) looked into the agency’s wasteful spending. According to the Huffington Post, the Trump administration presented a plan on Thursday that included staff cuts of thousands of employees.
Two of the remaining senior officials that were left in the agency after the DOGE’s initial move spoke on anonymity of Trump’s plan to deal with USAID’s wasteful spending to the Associated Press.
“The plan would leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of what are currently 8,000 direct-hires and contractors. They, along with an unknown number of 5,000 locally hired international staffers abroad, would run the few life-saving programs that the administration says it intends to keep going for the time being,” the Huffington Post reports.
It is not yet clear if the cutback is temporary or permanent, The Post reports, noting that employees could possibly return after “what the Trump administration says is a review of which aid and development programs it wants to resume.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it very clear since the DOGE targeted USAID that essential, life-saving foreign aid would continue throughout the process of the agency’s spending review.
Rubio, who has taken over as acting director of the agency during this time, said “we had no choice but to bring this thing under control,” after accusing the agency of holding itself accountable to the world rather than the United States and the taxpayers who support it.
“They don’t consider that they work for the U.S., they just think they’re a global entity and that their master is the globe and not the United States, and that’s not what the statute says, and that’s not sustainable,” Rubio told Fox News in an exclusive interview.
“There are things that we do through USAID that we should continue to do, that make sense, and we’ll have to decide, is that better through the State Department or is that better through something, you know, a reformed USAID? That’s the process we’re working through,” Rubio continued, adding that USAID must function in America’s interest.
Shortly after the DOGE acquired records from USAID, White House Press Secretary Karline Leavitt revealed that the humanitarian aid agency, which is believed to be giving essential support including food and shelter to those desperately in need of it around the world, was funding initiatives such as a DEI musical in Ireland, a transgender opera in Colombia, and a transgender comic book in Peru among other things.
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