WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump’s administration announced plans Friday to effectively close the US international development agency USAID, formalizing widely-criticized plans to dramatically cut foreign aid spending.
“Today, the Department of State and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have notified Congress on their intent to undertake a reorganization that would involve realigning certain USAID functions to the Department by July 1, 2025,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
The State Department, he said, also plans on “discontinuing the remaining USAID functions that do not align with Administration priorities.”
“Unfortunately, USAID strayed from its original mission long ago,” he said. “As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high.”
After taking office in January, Republican President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing US foreign aid for 90 days.
Dramatic cuts to various USAID programs followed, with some exemptions granted for vital humanitarian aid.
The aid freeze has caused shock and dismay at the independent agency created by an act of the US Congress in 1961.
Senate Democrats on the Committee on Foreign Relations denounced the move, saying in a statement that the reorganization “will not only render it impossible for any retained USAID programs to be implemented, but the burden placed on the State Department will cause significant disruption to its core mission.”
“This proposal is illegal, dangerous and inefficient,” they added.
Prior to its closure, the agency managed an annual budget of close to $43 billion, accounting for more than 40 percent of the world’s humanitarian aid. Most of its staff were placed on administrative leave shortly after Trump took office.
USAID staff were informed in a memo on Friday of plans to eliminate all jobs not required by law, according to multiple US media organizations.
In his memo, Lewin said agency personnel worldwide would shortly receive emailed termination notices giving them the choice of being fired on July 1 or September 2.
The exact number of personnel being fired was not immediately available. As of March 21, there were 869 US direct hire personnel on active duty and working, while 3,848 others were on paid administrative leave, according to Stand Up for Aid, a grassroots advocacy group.
Over the next three months, the State Department would assume USAID’s remaining “life-saving and strategic aid programming,” he said, adding that USAID personnel will not automatically be transferred to the department, which would conduct “a separate and independent hiring process.”
In the memo, Jeremy Lewin, the acting head of the independent agency, reportedly said the State Department also planned to retire most of USAID’s independent operations in the coming months.
The deep cuts at the agency have thrown humanitarian efforts around the world into turmoil. The latest notice came on the day that a powerful earthquake hit Thailand and Myanmar, toppling buildings and killing scores of people. USAID has historically played a major role in coordinating disaster relief efforts.
In the Middle East, cuts to USAID are said to have frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in contractual payments to aid groups working to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Earlier this month, three USAID officials speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said that the Trump administration had approved over $383 million in funding on January 31 to maintain a fragile ceasefire, which has since collapsed, in the Gaza Strip.
But since January 31, the officials said there had been no confirmed payments to any partners in the Middle East, forcing senior officials at aid organizations to pay out of pocket for urgent supplies and services.
Among the organizations impacted by the freeze was the International Medical Corps, a global nonprofit that provides medical and development assistance.
It was awarded $12 million to continue operations at two hospitals in Gaza, including at the largest field hospital in the Strip, whose construction was funded by USAID at the request of the Israeli government.
The organization was forced to lay off some 700 staff members as a result of the freeze, a USAID official said, and can now offer only basic services at the hospitals, with a skeletal crew.