Rubio unveils plan to review, potentially abolish U.S. foreign aid agency

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday unveiled plans to restructure and potentially abolish the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, moving swiftly against an agency that has emerged as a chief target in President Donald Trump’s drive to reshape the federal government and refocus spending at home.

In a letter to senior lawmakers from both parties, Rubio cited USAID activities he described as “conflicting, overlapping, and duplicative” with the State Department and noted what he said were “systems and processes [that] … often result in discord in the foreign policy and foreign relations of the United States.”

“In consultation with Congress, USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus, and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law,” Rubio said.

At the same time, the chief diplomat assumed more direct control of USAID, taking on the role of acting administrator and naming a Trump loyalist, Peter W. Marocco, to oversee an agency review and potential cuts. But Rubio stopped short of confirming that USAID—as has been widely rumored among aid officials in recent days—will be collapsed into the State Department.

Rubio’s report to Congress marks the first official notice of the drive by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading a pseudo-governmental initiative to remake the federal government, to review and potentially restructure or dismantle the beleaguered humanitarian assistance body.

Musk has vowed in social media posts to destroy USAID, calling it a “criminal organization.”

“Time for it to die,” he said.

Foreign aid represents approximately 1% of the federal budget.

Rubio, speaking earlier in the day to reporters on his first trip abroad as secretary of state, accused the agency, which has a staff of more than 10,000 and oversees food aid, emergency relief, health programs and other projects in more than 100 countries, of “insubordination” and acting against American interests.

“In many cases USAID is involved in programs that run counter to what we’re trying to do in our national strategy with that country or with that region,” Rubio told reporters in the Salvadoran capital. “That cannot continue.”

Democrats, speaking at a news conference outside USAID headquarters Monday where protesters gathered, vowed to stop what they called an illegal takeover attempt.

“This is a corrupt abuse of power,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, said. “Elon Musk may get to be dictator of Tesla, and he may try to play dictator here in Washington, D.C., but he doesn’t get to shut down the Agency for International Development.”

Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, vowed to place a blanket hold on all of Trump’s State Department nominees “until and unless this brazenly authoritarian action is reversed and USAID is functional again.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, said U.S.-funded assistance had helped her family in the years they spent in a Kenyan refugee camp. “When the world interacts with Americans through programs that provide essential need,” she said, “they get to see the heart and compassion of the American people.”

The lawmakers warned that halting USAID’s work would erode American soft power and damage national security.

“We are weaker today than we were yesterday,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, who accused Musk and “the billionaire class trying to take over our government.”

The developments inject new uncertainty into what has been a turbulent two-week period for USAID and the organizations implementing its programs worldwide, starting with Trump’s decision on his first day in office to impose a near-total freeze on American foreign assistance programs.

That decision unleashed chaos across the global aid community, which has scrambled to understand the scope of Trump’s plans and laid off or furloughed thousands of staff. Many USAID employees have since been put on unpaid leave as the Trump administration moves more broadly to pare the federal workforce and bring government agencies in line with its “America First” agenda.

USAID’s website has been offline for several days. On Sunday, the agency told employees in an email that its headquarters, a short walk from the White House, would be closed Monday.

Rubio, who has a history of supporting foreign aid programs, declined Monday to echo Musk’s description of the organization, telling reporters that “there are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue … but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy.”

But he also accused USAID leaders of insubordination, saying agency leaders had refused to answer basic questions posed by lawmakers during the Florida Republican’s time in the Senate. He also refuted the notion, which he said agency officials espoused to legislators, that USAID is an apolitical agency.

“American foreign policy isn’t apolitical,” Rubio said. “American foreign policy is … to further the interest of the United States. If someone wants to spend apolitical dollars, they should spend private dollars.”

Rubio’s searing comments about the agency contrast with his years of vocal support for foreign aid and criticisms of conservatives who view it as fiscally irresponsible.

“In the minds of many, our foreign aid is exaggerated: It really is a minuscule part of our overall budget and it’s not the reason why we have this growing debt in America,” Rubio said in 2011.

In 2017, he said on social media that foreign aid “is less than 1% of budget & critical to our national security.”

As a senator, Rubio was a longtime supporter of President George W. Bush’s signature program preventing HIV in Africa, PEPFAR, which has been imperiled by Trump’s aid freeze. A major push by Republicans, Democrats and religious groups persuaded Rubio to issue a waiver last week to exempt the program.

It was not immediately clear what will happen to USAID staff, the majority of whom are overseas, under Rubio’s plans for the agency.

Sen. James E. Risch, R-Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sought to downplay the changes the Trump administration was seeking to make.

“The idea of merging USAID and the State Department has been floated by nearly every administration since USAID was established by Congress in 1998,” he said in a statement.

The agency came into existence during the presidency of John F. Kennedy and was codified by Congress as an official agency in 1998.

In 1995, legislation to abolish USAID was introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, who aimed to replace the agency with a grant-making foundation. Although the House of Representatives passed a bill abolishing USAID, the measure did not become law.

To gain congressional cooperation for his foreign affairs agenda, President Bill Clinton adopted in 1997 a State Department proposal to integrate more foreign affairs agencies into the department. Although the law authorized the president to abolish USAID, Clinton did not exercise this option.

While debates over a bureaucratic overhaul have been fairly mainstream over the years, Musk’s effort to shutter USAID, lay off employees and contractors en masse, and halt billions of dollars of spending without congressional authorization has amounted to the most radical shift in aid policy in the agency’s history.