The administration of United States President Donald Trump announced that it will “eliminate” more than 90 percent of the foreign aid contracts of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and $60 billion in total U.S. aid worldwide.
The statement expressed in concrete numbers the new administration’s decision to eliminate the bulk of U.S. development and humanitarian assistance abroad.
The announced cuts show that very few USAID projects will remain.
The Trump administration outlined the plans in an internal memo seen by The Associated Press and in filings filed yesterday in one of the federal lawsuits challenging the measures.
The Supreme Court intervened in the case late Wednesday and temporarily blocked a court order that required the release of billions of dollars in foreign aid by midnight, the AP reports. Yesterday’s memos provide an idea of the extent to which the new US administration is reducing foreign development assistance and departing from decades of US policy that foreign aid serves American interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances.
The memo says it is cleaning up waste and planning additional changes to how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign aid in a way that “uses taxpayer dollars wisely and advances American interests.”
According to a court document, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who oversees USAID, decided, after reviewing the programs with his staff, to completely eliminate nearly 5,800 funding programs approved by the agency worldwide, and to keep just over 500.
In addition, about 4,100 State Department funding programs have been canceled and about 2,700 have been kept, the Trump administration said.
President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk, who is in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their efforts to shrink the federal government. Both say USAID projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money.
On January 20, the day he took office, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign aid and a review of those programs to decide which ones deserve to continue.
The freeze on foreign aid has halted thousands of U.S.-funded programs abroad, and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has furloughed most of the USAID staff through layoffs or furloughs.
