Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency completely eviscerated an entire government agency, leaving it with just one Trump-appointed employee.
DOGE announced on Tuesday that the Inter-American Foundation has been slashed in accordance with an executive order the president signed last month deeming it ‘unnecessary.’
The only employee left at the agency now is Peter Marocco, who previously presided over the Trump administration’s gutting of the foreign aid programs at the United States Agency for International Development and the state department, according to The Guardian.
Marocco was appointed to head the agency on Friday, it reports.
The headcount at the independent federal agency prior to DOGE’s onslaught was 48, and the average employee salary was $131,000 each year, according to Musk’s department.
‘The Inter-American Foundation, an agency whose primary action was to issue federal grants ($60million budget), has been reduced to its statutory minimum (1 active employee),’ DOGE posted to its X account on Tuesday ahead of Trump’s Address to the Joint Congress.
The agency was created by Congress in 1969 to issue grants to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean for ‘localized community-led development,’ according to its now defunct website.
It awarded some 5,800 grants valued at more than $945 million since 1972, with 425 active projects as of October, according to The Guardian.
Elon Musk ‘s Department of Government Efficiency announced Tuesday that it completely eviscerated the Inter-American Foundation
It shared some of the contracts it said it canceled from the agency
The agency has argued that its approach is ‘increasingly recommended as the most effective way to improve the quality of life in marginalized communities.’
But DOGE listed some of the contracts that were canceled at the IAF, including:
- $903,811 for alpaca farming in Peru
- $364,500 to reduce social discrimination of recyclers in Bolivia
- $813,210 for vegetable gardens in El Salvador
- $323,633 to promote cultural understanding of Venezuelan migrants in Brazil
- $731,105 to improve marketability of mushrooms and peas in Guatemala
- $677,342 to expand fruit and jam sales in Honduras
- $483,345 to improve artisanal salt production in Ecuador
- $39, 250 for beekeeping in Brazil
The website for the IAF was also shut down on Tuesday, with the homepage providing an error message.
The cuts to the agency were made in response to Trump’s February 19 executive order to reduce the roles of the Inter-American Foundation, the Presidio Trust, the US African Development Foundation and the US Institute of Peace.
‘The non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law,’ it says.
Congressional Democrats as well as the agency’s former board chairman, though, have accused the White House of overstepping its authority by attempting to shut down the agency without Congressional approval.
Peter Marocco was appointed to lead the agency on Friday
The website for the IAF was shut down on Tuesday, with the homepage providing an error message
‘Only an act of Congress – not an executive action – can dissolve or eliminate the IAF,’ Congressmen Joaquin Castro, Cory Booker and Tim Kaine as well as Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wrote in a letter to the White House at the time.
‘Any attempt to unilaterally dismantle the Foundation through executive action violates the law and exceed the constitutional limits of executive authority.’
The letter also argued that ‘eliminating this agency – or reducing its activities in an effort that would effectively eliminate it – would undermine US leadership in the region and create a power vacuum that adversarial powers would exploit to expand their influence and undermine congressional intent,’ according to the Rio Grande Guardian.
Similarly Eddy Arriola, the Senate-confirmed chair of the agency, argued that its governance was to remain ‘unaltered’ as he instructed the foundation’s then-president and CEO Sara Aviel to ‘deny access to IAF’s systems and files to anyone outside the organization.’
The cuts were made in accordance with an executive order President Donald Trump signed last month to reduce the roles of the Inter-American Foundation, the Presidio Trust, the US African Development Foundation and the US Institute of Peace
But on Monday, Marocco and members of DOGE arrived at the agency’s headquarters in Washington DC.
By the end of the day, employees received an email saying Marocco was now in charge and employees were laid off.
Prior to his appointment to head the IAF, Marocco was a Dallas-based conservative political activist who repeated Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
He and his wife, Merrit Corrigan, also allegedly stormed the Capitol building through a broken window on January 6, 2021.
They were allegedly identified by their clothing, jewelry and facial recognition.
