The sheer scale of cuts the Trump administration is looking to carry out at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been revealed, with nearly 15,000 grants worth $60 billion set to be eliminated, according to internal documents.
The grants amount to about 90% of foreign aid contracts and come after a review on spending by the State Department.
USAID aid became an early target of the Trump administration, with the president being a longtime critic of overseas spending, arguing that it does not benefit the American taxpayer and going so far as to call those who run the top agency ‘radical lunatics.’
Republicans argue it is wasteful, promotes liberal agendas and should be enfolded into the State Department, while Democrats say it saves lives abroad and helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies.
In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multi-year USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion, according to a State Department memo reviewed by the Associated Press.
The State Department memo described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration’s monthlong block on foreign aid funding.
‘In response, State and USAID moved rapidly,’ targeting USAID and State Department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract terminations, the memo said.
The memo said officials were ‘clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.’ More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, ‘to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.’
U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a federal judge’s order that required the Trump administration to pay around $2 billion in foreign aid funds to contractors by midnight.
The ruling comes after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to block the release of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, which the federal judge had required by midnight. Officials had said they would not be able to comply with the judge’s order.
USAID was set up in the early 1960s to act on behalf of the U.S. to deliver aid across the globe, particularly in impoverished and underdeveloped regions. The agency now operates out of 60 nations and employs some 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas – though most of the on-the-ground work is contracted out to third-party organizations funded by USAID, according to a BBC report.
But the agency has come in for considerable criticism as Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) look to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
Musk likened the agency to ‘not an apple with a worm in it,’ but ‘just a ball of worms.’
‘You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair,’ Musk wrote on X earlier this month.
Trump has moved to gut the agency after imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid. The Trump administration plans to gut the agency and intends to leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of the current 8,000 direct hires and contractors. He has also appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the acting director of USAID.
The news comes as thousands of staffers were notified weeks ago about pending dismissals. Some were seen leaving Washington, D.C., offices for the last time on Friday carrying boxes scrawled with messages that seemed to be directed at President Donald Trump.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, recently published a list of questionable projects and programs she says USAID has helped fund over the years, including $20 million to produce a Sesame Street show in Iraq.
Several more examples of questionable spending have been uncovered at USAID, including more than $900,000 to a ‘Gaza-based terror charity’ called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a $1.5 million program slated to ‘advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.’
Fox News’ Bill Mears, Andrew Mark Miller, Aubrie Spady, Deirdre Heavey, Caitlin McFall, Morgan Phillips and Emma Colton as well as Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.