Two weeks after the administration shut down billions of dollars in U.S. aid for security, development, and humanitarian causes, there is concern that the administration will take even more severe action against USAID.
President Donald Trump’s block on U.S.-funded international aid and development around the world has resulted in thousands of furloughs, layoffs, and program shutdowns. On Saturday, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s website fell down without providing an explanation.
Concerned that Trump might be moving toward dismantling USAID as a separate organization and incorporating it into the State Department, congressional Democrats publicly criticized the Trump administration. Democrats assert that USAID’s mission is essential to national security and that Trump lacks the legal authority to abolish an independent agency that receives funding from Congress.
Trump and Republicans in Congress argue that a large portion of development and international aid initiatives are ineffective. Programs that they contend further leftist social goals are singled out.
Two weeks after the administration shut down billions of dollars in U.S. aid for security, development, and humanitarian causes, there is concern that the administration will take even more severe action against USAID.
The United States is by far the biggest humanitarian aid giver in the world. Compared to several other nations, it spends a lesser percentage of its budget—less than 1%—on international aid.
Concerns raised by senators and others that Trump might be considering ending USAID’s independent status were not addressed by administration officials on Saturday.
The group was founded by President John F. Kennedy to combat Soviet influence during the height of the Cold War. Today, USAID is at the forefront of American efforts to counter China’s expanding power, which has its own prosperous “Belt and Road” foreign aid initiative.
Kennedy signed an executive order creating USAID as an autonomous agency and the Foreign Assistance Act, which Congress ratified in 1961.
In chat groups on Friday and Saturday, USAID employees kept tabs on its whereabouts, providing updates on whether the agency’s flag and signs were still flying outside its Washington offices. They were as of late Saturday afternoon.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy stated in a post on X that presidents cannot use executive orders to abolish federal entities that have been appropriated by Congress. Said Trump was poised to “double down on a constitutional crisis.”
Murphy said
“That’s what a despot — who wants to steal the taxpayers’ money to enrich his billionaire cabal — does,”.
Billionaire Elon Musk, taking care of the advising part of Trump’s campaign to whittle down the federal government in the name of efficiency. They endorsed posts on his X site calling for dissolving USAID.
“Live by executive order, die by executive order,” Musk tweeted about USAID.
