United States President, Donald Trump has slashed the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID), workforce from 10000 headcount to 300.
“THE CORRUPTION IS AT LEVELS RARELY SEEN BEFORE. CLOSE IT DOWN!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social app about USAID, without offering evidence.
USAID which distributes humanitarian aid globally, received the most concentrated fire since Trump launched a crusade led by Musk – the world’s richest person – to downsize or dismantle swaths of the US government.
On Friday, Musk – who along with Trump has spread blatantly false information about USAID’s finances – reposted photos of the agency’s signage being removed from its Washington headquarters.
The Trump administration has frozen foreign aid, ordered thousands of internationally-based staff to return to the United States, and begun slashing the USAID headcount of 10,000 employees to around only 300.
Labor unions were challenging the legality of the onslaught. A federal judge on Friday ordered a pause to the administration’s plan to put 2,200 USAID workers on paid leave by the weekend.
Democrats say it would be unconstitutional for Trump to shut down government agencies without the legislature’s green light
The United States’ current budget allocates about $70 billion for international assistance, a tiny fraction of overall spending.
But it gets a big bang for its buck. USAID alone runs health and emergency programs in around 120 countries, including in the world’s poorest regions, boosting Washington’s battle for influence against rivals such as China.
“We are witnessing one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in US history,” Samantha Power, the USAID chief under former president Joe Biden, wrote in a scathing New York Times opinion piece.
Author; Maureen Ikpeama