US State Secretary Marco Rubio announced Monday that the US government has officially finished its 60-year-old U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by eliminating 5,200 of the agency’s 6,200 programs.
The remaining 18% of aid and development programs that survived, according to the state secretary, would move under the state department.
Rubio’s social media post Monday said those programs “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve (and in some cases even harmed) the core national interests of the United States.”
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping... to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” he said. Democratic lawmakers and others call the shutdown of congressionally funded programs illegal, saying such a move requires Congress’ approval.
The dismantling of USAID that followed Trump’s order upended decades of policy that humanitarian and development aid abroad advanced U.S. national security by stabilizing regions and economies, strengthening alliances, and building goodwill.
Reports indicate that apart from leaving thousands of local staff, the shutdown has left many USAID staffers and contractors and their families still overseas, many of them awaiting U.S.-paid back payments and travel expenses back home.
The shutdown will also have a significant impact on millions of lives, according to regional and global organizations utilizing the funds provided by the agency.
The World Health Organization, for instance, warned last week that the sweeping funding cuts could endanger millions of lives since many countries depend on foreign aid for TB prevention, testing, and treatment.
“Without immediate action, hard-won progress in the fight against TB is at risk,” Dr. Tereza Kasaeva, director of the WHO’s Global Programme on TB and Lung Health, said in a statement Wednesday.
The Guardian reported that the US government's withdrawal of overseas aid will almost decimate global climate finance from the developed world, data shows, with potentially devastating impacts on vulnerable nations. In 2024, the US spent $11bn on climate finance. A third of this amount was financed through USAID.
The Guardian said, mentioning campaigners, that Trump's administration measures to pull out the US from climate funding would have a major impact on the ability of poor countries to cope with extreme weather. “The US retreat from its global climate finance commitments is a staggering blow to the chances of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5C [above preindustrial levels]. By abruptly axing nearly a tenth of the limited funds for climate protection in developing countries, it is effectively abandoning millions of communities who have done nothing to cause global warming but who are losing homes, livelihoods, and lives because of it," the executive director of 350.org, Anne Jellema, told the Guardian.