Breaking Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83 percent of the U. S. Agency for International Development ( USAID ) programs, or 5, 200 contracts, will be terminated. Also, the remaining activities and about 1, 000 agreements may be administered by the State Department.
” 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 said 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”.
Rubio was personally involved in the review process for USAID grants, the State Department said in an internal memo which noted that , the cuts to 5, 800 multi-year USAID projects are worth an estimated$ 54 billion.
” In response, State and USAID moved abruptly to complete the programmatic evaluation — lifting ]stop-work orders ] for some programs and terminating others”, according to the memo.
Rubio did not specify which Aid programs the State Department had begin managing, but the letter said food aid initiatives and care programs such as medical treatments for tb, HIV, and malaria may be kept in place.
” Rubio’s assessment of USAID offers was part of State’s broader overview of U. S. international support that President Trump ordered at the start of his name. The State Department identified around$ 60 billion of international support reductions in full during its ongoing evaluation process” information National Review.
