U.S. President Donald Trump's administration appears to be shuttering Washington's main international aid arm amid a blitz of executive actions targeting government spending, a move international humanitarian organizations have warned could have catastrophic consequences.
Leading the charge against the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is Elon Musk, Trump's point man on slashing government spending, who claims the administration can cut $1 trillion from the U.S. deficit and is positioning his drive as a battle against corruption.
USAID employees received a notice that the agency's headquarters in Washington would be closed to personnel on February 3 "at the direction of Agency leadership," CNN and the Associated Press cited multiple sources as saying.
The website of USAID, which the UN says provides more than 40 percent of all humanitarian aid globally, was down on February 3, and Trump claimed the agency has "been run by a bunch of radical lunatics."
"We're getting them out, and then we'll make a decision" on USAID's future, he told reporters on February 2.
Trump's comments followed reports by CNN and Reuters that two senior USAID security officials had been placed on administrative leave after they tried to prevent representatives of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Trump-established organization led by Musk, from accessing agency computer systems.
Musk himself called USAID, which administers tens of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign assistance approved by Congress, a "criminal organization" and that it is "time for it to die."
A group of senior Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 2 sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing "deep concern" over the Trump administration's moves targeting an organization they said was set up "to ensure that we can deploy development expertise and U.S. foreign assistance quickly, particularly in times of crisis, to meet our national security goals."
The State Department under Rubio on January 24 ordered a freeze on new funding for almost all U.S. foreign assistance programs as part of Trump's drive to align the programs with his foreign policy goals.
Since assuming his post last month, Rubio has said of U.S. foreign aid under Trump: "Every dollar we spend, every program we fund, and every policy we pursue must be justified with the answer to three simple questions: Does it make America safer? Does it make America stronger? Does it make America more prosperous?"
Trump's executive order called for a 90-day pause in U.S. foreign development assistance to assess efficiencies and "consistency with United States foreign policy." It grants Rubio the power to waive the three-month pause for "specific programs."
Humanitarian groups and nongovernmental organizations across the globe voiced concern over the fate of USAID after Trump's executive order.
A pause in funding for Afghanistan "would be catastrophic for an operation for more than 22 million Afghans that need aid," Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.
Since Russia launched its all-out war on Ukraine in February 2022, USAID has provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, development assistance, and direct budget support.
Trump has criticized the amount of aid -- including billions of dollars in weapons -- that the Biden administration has provided to Ukraine.
Svitlana Musiak, a researcher at the Kyiv-based Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO), an NGO, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that a suspension of USAID funding to Ukraine could negatively impact civil-society programs and signal "reduced U.S. support for democratic reforms and economic stability in the country."
At the same time, some representatives of Ukrainian civil society support an audit, including Olena Trehub, executive director of the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission and a member of the Anti-Corruption Council at the Defense Ministry.
On February 2, Trehub wrote on Facebook that she had "always emphasized the need to reform USAID, as, by monitoring the effectiveness of projects, she saw how enormous budgets pass through this government agency and how often the results leave much to be desired."
At the same time, she noted that USAID had supported critically important reforms, civil society, humanitarian, and infrastructure projects that had a significant impact on Ukraine's development.
Speaking to CBS News on February 2, Republican Congressman Brian Mast of Florida said he is working with Rubio "to make sure that there's the appropriate command and control" of agencies like USAID.
Mast, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives, said he would support "removing USAID as a separate department" and having it fall under "other parts" of the State Department.
The senior Senate Democrats said in their February 2 letter to Rubio that "any effort to merge or fold USAID into the Department of State should be, and by law must be, previewed, discussed, and approved by Congress."
"Congress has also made clear that any attempt to reorganize or redesign USAID requires advance consultation with, and notification to, Congress," they wrote.
