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The offices of the US Agency for International Development will remain closed on Tuesday after secretary of state Marco Rubio said he had taken over as its acting director.
An email sent on Monday evening directed staffers at USAID, the country’s main foreign assistance agency, to stay at home after its headquarters were unexpectedly closed earlier in the day.
An earlier email ordering personnel to work from home had been sent on Monday morning.
The Department of State said it was taking “an interim step toward gaining control and better understanding over the agency’s activity”.
Rubio’s announcement on Monday was the latest sign USAID would be absorbed into the state department.
Aid workers, diplomats and lawmakers have been trying to make sense of the incidents at USAID, which President Donald Trump has said is run by “radical lunatics”. Its website is down, hundreds of officials have lost access to emails and dozens have been put on leave.
“There are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue,” Rubio said while on a trip to El Salvador. “They’re going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy.”
On Sunday night, Trump told reporters USAID had been “run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out . . . and then we’ll make a decision”.
Elon Musk, whose “Department of Government Efficiency” has been involved in the moves against USAID, said he had Trump’s support to shut the agency down.
“None of this could be done without the full support of the president,” Musk said during an early Monday morning audio conversation on X. “With regards to the USAID stuff, I went over with him in detail and he agreed that we should shut it down.”
USAID is an independent agency that is responsible for administering foreign aid and development programmes © Shawn Thew/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Trump has made Musk’s Doge responsible for cutting what both men say is wasteful US government spending. The email to USAID staff came from Gavin Kliger, who according to multiple media reports is an engineer on Musk’s Doge team. Kliger did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
USAID is an independent agency with about 10,000 employees worldwide and is responsible for administering US foreign aid and development programmes. Former president Joe Biden had elevated the USAID administrator to the National Security Council.
The USAID administrator works under the authority of Rubio but has their own budget. USAID did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Trump and his team have made clear they want US foreign aid to align with his “America First” platform. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday highlighted what she said were “some of the insane priorities that that organisation has been spending money on”, listing diversity and inclusion projects around the world. “I don’t want my dollars going towards this crap and I know the American people don’t either,” she added.
The absorption of USAID into the state department could mean less money available for long-standing development and assistance programmes. This could also harm humanitarian efforts worldwide and allow China to fill the void.
Public Citizen, the group founded by veteran consumer advocate Ralph Nader is preparing a legal challenge to Trump’s attempt’s to shut down the agency.
Peter Maybarduk, head of the organisation’s access to medicines group, said the aim was to block the president’s executive order, which he said “will save the US effectively no money but cost many lives”.
Two top security officials were placed on leave on Saturday evening after they refused to allow officials from Doge to access internal agency systems, including classified information, said people familiar with the matter.
The Doge employees were able to access some of the information after the security officials were forcibly removed, the people said. Katie Miller, a Doge spokesperson, said “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances”. CNN first reported the confrontation.
Dozens of other career USAID officials have also been put on leave since last week, with some accused of trying to thwart Trump’s directions for the agency. Matt Hopson, the agency’s chief of staff, resigned after the episode, said a person familiar with the matter.
The changes at the agency are being overseen by Pete Marocco, a state department official who oversees the co-ordination of US foreign aid and was named acting deputy administrator by Rubio. He was an official in the first Trump term who has been identified in multiple media reports as being present when rioters stormed the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
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Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, and several other senior Democrats, sent Rubio a letter demanding an explanation for the recent developments at USAID and noting any effort to merge or fold the agency into the state department “by law must be previewed, discussed and approved by Congress”.
The “stop work orders” have prompted many American companies with USAID contracts to furlough or lay off thousands of workers and more cuts are expected in the weeks ahead.
Additional reporting by Steff Chavez and Andrew Jack