Trump admin slashes 83% of USAID programs: Rubio

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday that the Trump administration has slashed 83% of the United States Agency for International Development's programs.

The Department of Government Efficiency has scrutinized USAID for its wasteful spending, highlighting grants for LGBT, climate, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Even before President Donald Trump took office and the department was officially formed, the DOGE set its sights on rooting out USAID's questionable awards.

'Pushing radical left politics.'

"USAID spends $40B+ of taxpayer dollars to fund foreign aid," DOGE wrote in January.

It noted that $45 million in taxpayer funds went to DEI scholarships in Burma and $520 million to environmental, social, and governance projects in Africa. According to the DOGE, another $1.2 billion went to "undisclosed recipients."

On Monday, Rubio explained that a six-week review of USAID was recently completed, resulting in the cancellation of 83% of its programs.

"The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled 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," Rubio wrote in a post on X.

"In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department," he continued.

"Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform," Rubio concluded.

Elon Musk, who has been working alongside the DOGE as one of President Donald Trump's advisers, called the USAID audit "tough, but necessary."

"Good working with you," Musk told Rubio. "The important parts of USAID should always have been with Dept of State."

Last week, Musk accused USAID of "interfering in governments throughout the world and pushing radical left politics."

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) warned on Monday that Congress' current proposed continuing resolution would fully fund USAID despite the announced cuts.

"Despite @DOGE's findings of loony left-wing USAID programs, the Republican spending bill continues to fund the very foreign aid @elonmusk proposes to cut!" he wrote in a post on X.

"The bill continues spending at the inflated pandemic levels and will add $2T to the debt this year. Count me as a hell no!" Paul declared.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has similarly noted that the CR would fund the federal government at existing levels through September 30.

"Rand is correct. I'm a No as well on this CR," Massie wrote in response to Paul's post.

In a separate X post, he noted that the CR "does fund USAID."

"If it passes this week, the CR obligates Trump (from now until September) to spend the same amounts of money on generally the same things Biden spent money on in his last 15 months in office," Massie explained. "We could pass recisions later to undo some things, but there's no commitment to do so."

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