Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has become a rogue agency and the State Department had “no choice” but to step in and bring it to heel.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing a 90-day pause on most U.S. foreign assistance disbursed through the State Department to allow an “assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
The Trump administration last week placed dozens of USAID workers on administrative leave after they attempted to block Trump’s executive orders requiring an immediate pause of federal aid funds to overseas programs and an end to all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs within the agency.
Since then, thousands of USAID staffers have been laid off and a slew of programs have been shut down, as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency examines the agency’s books.
Here are a few examples of the waste and abuse as cited by the White House:
$1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”
$70,000 for production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland
$2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam
$47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia
$32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru
$2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
$6 million to fund tourism in Egypt
Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations — even AFTER an inspector general launched an investigation
Millions to EcoHealth Alliance — which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab
“Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria”
Funding to print “personalized” contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries
Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban
The White House’s list barely scratches the surface however, as more examples of USAID’s waste, fraud and abuse are being discovered every day. As former State Dept. cyber expert Mike Benz has argued, USAID has long been a CIA slush fund and money-laundering operation for far-left NGO’s.
“They’re an arm of the radical-left globalists,” Musk himself posted on X Tuesday morning.
As the Daily Wire reported Monday, 97 percent of political contributions from USAID employees have gone to Democrats.
While Democrats protested the Trump administration’s actions outside USAID’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., Monday, yellow police tape and officers blocked agency staffers from entering the building. The agency’s website briefly disappeared over the weekend, and hundreds of USAID employees reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems.
In an exclusive interview Monday with Fox News in El Salvador, Rubio announced that he was taking over as acting director of USAID due to the “rank insubordination” within the agency.
USAID “believes that they’re not even a U.S. government agency,” Rubio explained, adding that “one of the most common complaints” he hears from U.S. Embassies around the world is that “USAID is not only not cooperative, they undermine the work that we’re doing in that country.”
Rubio noted: “They are supporting programs that upset the host country” [such as pressuring Chile to adopt a radical LGBTQ curriculum in schools].
“So they are completely unresponsive,” Rubio told Fox, adding “they don’t consider that they work for the U.S., they just think they’re a global entity and that they’re master is the globe and not the United States, and that’s not what the statute says, and that’s not sustainable.”
Rubio stopped short of saying the agency “needs to die,” as Musk has said, but did express a desire to reform it.
“There are things that we do through USAID that we should continue to do, that make sense, and we’ll have to decide, is that better through the State Department or is that better through something, you know, a reformed USAID? That’s the process we’re working through.”
Rubio insisted however that the United States would remain the “most generous nation on Earth,” but in a way that makes sense and is in the nation’s best interests.
Update:
The Trump administration appears to be in the process of shutting USAID down.
Tuesday night the following message appeared on the USAID website
On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs. Essential personnel expected to continue working will be informed by Agency leadership by Thursday, February 6, at 3:00pm (EST).
For USAID personnel currently posted outside the United States, the Agency, in coordination with missions and the Department of State, is currently preparing a plan, in accordance with all applicable requirements and laws, under which the Agency would arrange and pay for return travel to the United States within 30 days and provide for the termination of PSC and ISC contracts that are not determined to be essential. The Agency will consider case-by-case exceptions and return travel extensions based on personal or family hardship, mobility or safety concerns, or other reasons. For example, the Agency will consider exceptions based on the timing of dependents’ school term, personal or familial medical needs, pregnancy, and other reasons. Further guidance on how to request an exception will be forthcoming.
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