US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday the United States was cancelling 83 per cent of programmes at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid to give his administration time to assess overseas spending, with an eye to gutting programmes not aligned with his “America First” agenda.
“After a 6-week review, we are officially cancelling 83 per cent of the programmes at USAID,” Rubio said in a social media post.
“The 5,200 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,” he added.
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18 per cent of programmes we are keeping … to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” he said. Democratic lawmakers and others call the shutdown of congressionally-funded programmes illegal, and said such a move required Congress’ approval.
Rubio on Monday notably thanked the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which billionaire Elon Musk was leading in a drive to slash costs and cut jobs across government departments.
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