Washington – The United States International Development Agency website was disconnected without explanation on Saturday when thousands of permits, layoffs and programs closures continued in the president Donald Trump’s Freeze foreign help and development funded by the United States worldwide.
The Democrats of Congress fought against the Trump administration more and more openly, expressing their concern that Trump can go to the end of USAID as an independent agency and absorb it in the State Department. Democrats say that Trump has no legal authority to eliminate an independent agency funded by Congress, and that USAID’s work is vital for national security.
Trump and the Republicans of Congress say that much of the external aid and development programs are a waste. They highlight programs that claim to advance in liberal social agendas.
The fear of an even harder administration action against USAID arrives two weeks after administration close of billions of dollars of the humanitarian, development and security assistance of the United States.
The United States is the largest donor in the world of humanitarian aid with much. It spends less than 1% of your budget in foreign assistance, a minor participation in general than other countries.
Administration officials did not comment on Saturday when asked about the concerns expressed by legislators and others that Trump may be planning to end with USAID as an independent agency.
President John F. Kennedy created in the height of the Cold War to counteract Soviet influence. USAID today is at the center of us’s challenges for the growing influence of Porcelainthat has a successful foreign aid of “belt and road” program on your own.
The Congress approved the Foreign Assistance Law in 1961, and Kennedy signed that the law and an executive order established by USAID as an independent agency.
USAID employees spent Friday and Saturday in Chat groups by monitoring the fate of their agency, giving updates on whether the agency’s flag and signs were still out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington. Until Saturday afternoon, they were.
In a position on X, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said the presidents cannot eliminate federal agencies appropriate by the Congress by executive order, and said Trump was prepared to “duplicate a constitutional crisis.”
“That is what a despot, who wants to steal the money from the taxpayers to enrich his multimillionaire clique, does it,” Murphy said.
Billionaire Elon Musk, advising Trump in a campaign to reduce the federal government in the name of efficiency, supported the positions in his place X asking to dissolve the USAID.
“Living in executive order, dying in executive order,” Musk tweeted in reference to USAID.
Trump placed a freezing of 90 days unprecedented in foreign assistance on his first day in the position on January 20. The order, a harder interpretation than expected of the Trump’s freezing order on January 24 written by Peter Marocco, a political designated that returns from Trump’s first term, closes thousands of programs worldwide and forced permits or layoffs of many thousands.
Since then, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has moved to maintain more types of strictly emergency programs that save life during freezing. Help groups say that confusion around programs is still allowed to operate is to contribute to paralysis in global aid organizations.
Rubio said Thursday, in his first public comments on the matter, that USAID programs were being reviewed to eliminate anyone that is not of national interest, but said nothing about eliminating it as an agency.
The closure of the programs financed by the United States during the 9 -day review meant that the United States was “receiving much more cooperation” of humanitarian assistance, development and security recipients, Rubio said.
Republicans and Democrats have fought during the agency for years, arguing whether humanitarian and development aid protects the US. UU. By helping to stabilize associated countries and economies, or it is a loss of money. Republicans generally press to give more control to the State of the USAID’s policy and funds. Democrats generally build autonomy and authority of Usaid.
A version of that legal battle was developed in Trump’s first mandate, when Trump tried to reduce the budget for foreign operations in a third party.
When Congress refused, the Trump administration used freezing and other tactics to reduce the flow of funds already appropriate by Congress for foreign programs. The General Accounting Office ruled that it violated a law known as the Packing Control Law.
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AP photographer Carolyn Kaster contributed to this report.
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