Last Updated:
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have long targeted USAID for “wasteful spending”. The cancellation marks a stark realignment of US policy.
Donald Trump has worked quickly to shut down most of USAID, calling it a “left-wing scam”. (Reuters/File Image)
The Trump administration has officially cancelled 83% of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) programmes, following a six-week review by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The rest of the programmes will now be administered under the US State Department.
“After a 6 week review, we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID,” said Rubio on X. “The 5200 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.”
After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.The 5200 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.
In…
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) March 10, 2025
Rubio said the administration intended for the remaining 1,000 projects (18%) to be administered “more effectively” under the State Department. He also thanked the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his own staff for this “historic reform”.
Rubio’s announcement came after reports of an alleged clash with Musk during a Cabinet meeting in the presence of Trump. Musk had accused Rubio of not firing staff in the State Department, but the Secretary of State responded by saying over 1,000 employees had taken the buyout offer.
US President Donald Trump and his close ally, Elon Musk, have long targeted USAID for what they call “wasteful spending” in projects across the world. Last month, Trump announced that he was cutting off more than 90% of foreign aid provided through USAID. A total of about 5,800 grants were cancelled, and more than 500 USAID grants were frozen.
On January 20, Trump ordered what he described as a 90-day review to assess which foreign aid programmes should continue, but funding was abruptly halted, effectively cutting off all foreign assistance overnight. The freeze had brought thousands of US-funded initiatives abroad to a standstill.
Trump and Musk have moved swiftly to shutter USAID, calling its programmes out of line with the president’s agenda and asserting without evidence that its work is wasteful. It also cancelled millions of dollars of funds allocated to other countries, including $21 million to India for ‘voter turnout’, which sparked a furore.
The cutbacks initiated by Trump and Musk have already upended the global aid system and decades of US policy, with hundreds of programmes frozen in several countries, including in Ukraine, where USAID has supplied over $2 billion in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance.
However, the US Supreme Court last week rejected Trump’s bid to freeze some $2 billion in foreign aid payments. The court, in its first significant ruling on a legal challenge to the Trump administration, voted 5-4 to uphold a lower court order requiring that payments be made on aid contracts that have already been completed.
The justices said the federal judge who ordered the resumption of payments for contracts with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department “should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfil.”
(with inputs from agencies)
- Location :
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)
