Washington – President Trump and billionaire ELON ALMIZCLE They have established their Mira in the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, supervising an interruption of the organization of more than 60 years that provides humanitarian aid to more than 100 countries.
The Usaid orientation of the Trump administration occurs when the president has promised to reduce the size of the federal government and commissioned Musk to lead the effort to do so through his Government efficiency department, or doge. The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has notified Congress that he is looking at a possible reorganization, which I could include merge it With the State Department.
But critics of Mr. Trump’s actions warn that radical movements, which occur only two weeks after he returned to office, threaten to put the nation at risk and undermine their credibility worldwide. Legislators have also warned that any attempt to change the USAID structure, an independent agency, would require the action of Congress.
“If the United States will prevail in a great power competition, we cannot afford to take a waiting time for the USAID programs that have long served to advance the objectives of the foreign policy of the United States,” said the main Democrats in the Foreign Affairs Committees of the Chamber and the Senate in a letter Last week to Jason Gray, who later served as an interim administrator of USAID. “The United States needs to be active and we must carry through our example.”
What is Usaid?
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The United States International Development Agency is the leading Federal Government Agency for International and Development Assistance. Established in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Law, Usaid “works to end extreme global poverty and allow resistant and democratic societies to realize their potential,” according to a archived web page of the agency.
The help that the organization provides aims to promote numerous objectives, including the strengthening of democracy, the protection of human rights, the improvement of global health and the advancement of food security, said the page.
USAID has more than 10,000 people in his workforce, according to the non -partisan Congress Research Service, and most of those employees, approximately two thirds, are serving abroad. The agency has more than 60 country and regional missions.
The agency is funded by taxpayers authorized by Congress and reports to the Secretary of State.
According to a archived version From its website, Usaid Money has been used to provide almost 9,000 fans to 43 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, finance more than 150 local organizations to implement interventions for HIV and launch the Chinese influence fund of counter-ruling. USAID said the fund will invest $ 300 million in programs to advance the national security objectives in several areas “to build more resistant partners who can resist the pressure of the pressure [Chinese Community Party] and other evil actors. “
USAID was created in the height of the Cold War as part of a recognition by Kennedy and his successor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, of humanitarian aid as a form of diplomacy. With the agency surviving the Cold War and the new threats to the US interests that arise, the Democrats in Congress have warned that the destruction of Trump’s USAID threatens the nation’s ability to compete with China and Russia.
What is the USAID budget?
In fiscal year 2023, USAID administered more than $ 40 billion in assignments, said the Congress Research Service, a figure that is less than 1% of the federal budget.
Most of this financing was allocated to governance programs, followed by humanitarian and health sectors, according to the report. The countries that received the greatest amount of money in fiscal year 2023 were Ukraine, Ethiopia and Jordan.
Although the health sector received the greatest amount of funds in the early 1990s, humanitarian assistance became the best funded in fiscal year 2022 due to increases in aid after “humanitarian crisis induced by The natural and human, “according to the Congress Research Service. However, governance occupied the first place for fiscal year 2023, due to the support of the United States to the Ukraine Government in the middle of the country’s war with Russia.
The money approved for Usaid by Congress is spent through the “implementing partners” of the agency, including private contractors, non -profit organizations, foreign governments and international groups.
What is happening with USAID now?
The agency has been the subject of significant scrutiny by Musk and Doge, which Trump has responsible for reducing the size of the federal government.
The musk has repeatedly criticized Usaid in X, the social networks platform that it possesses, calling it a “criminal organization” that should “die.” He Said early Monday That he had spoken with Mr. Trump about Usaid and said the president agrees that “we should close it.”
“USAID is a worm ball. There is no apple and when there is no apple, you must basically get rid of the whole matter,” Musk said, added that the agency is “beyond repair.”
Meanwhile, Trump told reporters on Saturday that the agency “has been directed by a lot of radical lunatics.”
There has been a great activity aimed at USAID and its employees in recent days. Approximately 60 higher employees were placed on administrative license Last week and hundreds of contractors had their license or termination, sources told CBS News.
Then, on Saturday, the USAID website darkened, and two senior security officials with the humanitarian aid agency were placed on administrative license After they refused to let Doge staff access classified information in restricted areas, according to Associated Press.
Katie Miller, who works for Doge, said in X that “no classified material was accessed without adequate security authorizations.”
Matt Hopson, who was used by Trump to serve as the USAID cabinet manager, resigned on Sunday, two employees told CBS News. The agency was told to the USAID headquarters in Washington, DC, would be closed for them on Monday, according to a notice they received.
The agitation in Usaid is established in the context of the 90 -day freezing of the Trump administration in foreign assistance, which has programs worldwide and forced layoffs and licenses. The order ordered all the diplomatic and consular positions of the United States that immediately issued “stop” orders for existing foreign assistance awards, waiting for the secretary’s review.
But the Secretary of State then issued an exemption that applies to “humanitarian assistance that saves life”, defined as “medicine to save lives, medical services, food, refuge and subsistence assistance, as well as reasonable supplies and administrative costs according to be necessary to deliver such assistance. “
What will happen to USAID?
The president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Brian Mast, Republican of Florida, He said “Face the Nation” The Sunday that uses would probably be “rolled up more closely” under blond. He regretted that a fraction of what the agency spends to help.
“It would be absolutely, if that is the path we go down, eliminating USAID as a separate department” and moving parts of the state department, Mast said.
A day later, three American officials told CBS News that Usaid would continue to be an entity of humanitarian aid, but it would be Merged into the State Department with cuts to its financing and workforce. The Trump administration is expected to announce the changes in the next few days. Rubio has been appointed Interim Administrator of USAID, and told Congress in a letter obtained by CBS News that authorized Peter Marocco, director of foreign assistance in the State Department, to fulfill the duties of the Deputy Administrator.
The State Department said in a statement that Rubio has “notified the Congress that a review of the USAID’s foreign assistance activities is underway with the possible reorganization.”
Dr. Atul Gawande, former Global Health Director of USAID, He told Fox News The movement to aim the agency is “dangerous for the United States and humanity.”
“These are people who close an agency and have no idea of the work to The world with a budget that is half of the hospital budget where I do surgery, “Gawande said.
In Publications series In X, Gawande said that a break about foreign assistance “makes serious damage to the United States.” He also published a list of examples on how this can affect global health, including work arrest in a Marburg mortal outbreak In Tanzania, a Broad outbreak of a mpox variant Kill children in West Africa and stop critical work to eradicate polyomyelitis.
Some impacts hit even closer to home, since this also “stops monitoring the avian flu in 49 countries, a disease that already killed an American in the homeland,” he wrote.
“Do not be wrong: these essential activities and that save lives are being stopped at this time. The consequences are not in the distant future. They are immediate,” concluded their thread.
The Trump administration will not be the first to try to supervise a USAID reorganization. A similar effort was made by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during the Clinton administration under a two -year plan That would keep Usaid as a separate agency, but it would bring it under the direct authority of the Secretary of State.
In 1998, Congress approved the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Law, which Usaid established as an independent agency and clarified that its administrator “will report and will be under the direct authority and foreign policy orientation of the Secretary of State.”
At the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the USAID workforce had fallen from 11,500 employees to less than 8,000, and the number of countries with agencies programs was reduced from 120 to 70, according to the book “VS Defense State: The battle to define the United States Empire” by journalist Stephen Glain.
and Sara Moniuszko contributed to this report.
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