VOA News | Tuesday, February 4, 2025 
US foreign aid programs face major restructuring under Trump

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which manages tens of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. foreign aid programs, was essentially closed down on Monday, with employees locked out of their offices and computer systems. Several senior figures in the agency were placed on leave as the Trump administration took steps to fold its functions into the Department of State. Speaking to reporters in El Salvador, where he was traveling, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he is now USAID’s acting director and would be taking steps to bring the agency’s activities in line with the policies of the administration. Rubio described the agency as historically “unresponsive” to Congress and the White House, even though the agency, he claimed, is supposed to take its direction from the State Department. “USAID has a history of sort of ignoring that and deciding that there’s somehow a global charity separate from the national interest,” Rubio said. “These are taxpayer dollars, and we owe the American people assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest.” Rubio’s comments were less harsh than those of billionaire Elon Musk, who President Donald Trump has given significant power to overhaul the federal government, and whose newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sent representatives into USAID offices over the weekend. “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk wrote on the social media platform X on Sunday. “Time for it to die.” – Read more