As part of a broader drive to reduce federal bureaucracy, the Trump administration has threatened to close the U.S. Agency for International Development as an independent agency and possibly transfer it under the U.S. State Department. This has left the agency at the heart of a political controversy.
At a fraction of the total federal budget, USAID sends billions of dollars in humanitarian help abroad, which advocates say is a vital lifeline to over 100 countries. However, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who leads his government efficiency program, termed USAID a criminal organization, and President Donald Trump denounced it over the weekend as being managed by a group of extremist lunatics.
The future of the agency is unknown. More than a dozen individuals have told NBC News that officials in the Trump administration have talked about putting USAID under the State Department’s jurisdiction. A week after hundreds of USAID contractors were put on unpaid leave and several were fired as a result of Trump’s global freeze on U.S. foreign aid, Musk said Monday that the government was moving to close the agency.
Employees were instructed to work remotely on Monday while USAID’s Washington office was closed.
The events follow the administrative leave of USAID’s director of security and his deputy, who were accused on Saturday of refusing access to the agency’s secure systems to Musk’s cost-cutting task team.
Why are Trump and Musk so skeptical of USAID, and what does it do? Continue reading to learn more.
What is USAID?
According to a Congressional Research Service report, USAID is the U.S. government’s worldwide humanitarian and development arm, helping countries in conflict as well as other strategically significant countries by reducing poverty, sickness, and other problems.
Based on the notion that American security was linked to stability and economic progress in other countries, USAID was founded as an independent agency by then-President John F. Kennedy in 1961 with two objectives: to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War and to administer various foreign assistance programs.
According to the CRS, USAID currently employs over 10,000 workers, of whom around two-thirds serve abroad.
The organization tackles a variety of issues, such as clean water and women’s health. Former USAID administrator Jeremy Konyndyk, who served in the Obama and Biden administrations, called the agency’s work urgent and stated that dismantling it will interfere with important public health programs at clinics that receive U.S. funding abroad.
According to Konyndyk, president of the rights advocacy group Refugees International, “to be very explicit about what is being turned off, the sort of things that are being stopped are programs that support 20 million people on lifesaving HIV treatment right now.” In addition to being extremely dangerous for those people, it poses a threat to global health.