Secretary of state says 83% of USAID programs are being canceled

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said early Monday that 83% of programs funded by U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, are being canceled, in the latest for the beleaguered agency that provides humanitarian aid overseas and has become the target for the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. 

Rubio said on his personal X account that the cancellations come after a six-week review, and that “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.”

Rubio also said that in consultation with Congress, the State Department intends for the remaining 1,000 programs to be administered “more effectively” under the State Department. 

“Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform,” Rubio posted.

The State Department said two weeks ago that 5,800 USAID contracts had been canceled, a 92% reduction. Rubio on Monday did not give any explanation for the difference in numbers.   

USAID has been the target of DOGE, the agency created in an executive order signed by President Trump on his first day in office. DOGE is supposed to be tasked with eliminating government waste and posted in February a “wall of receipts” outlining the money allegedly saved by cutting government programs. CBS News has found that the “wall of receipts” contained multiple errors, and DOGE’s purges have faced numerous challenges in court. 

USAID, which was founded in 1961 by President Kennedy, provided humanitarian aid to more than 100 countries, including disaster relief, health and medical aid, and emergency food programs. In fiscal year 2023, USAID managed more than $40 billion in appropriations, the Congressional Research Service said, a figure that is less than 1% of the federal budget. 

Mr. Trump accused USAID as being run by “radical left lunatics.” Musk, meanwhile, said it was “beyond repair.” Three U.S. officials have told CBS News that Mr. Trump plans to merge USAID into the State Department and severely reduce its staff and budget.

In early February, two top security officials were placed on administrative leave after they refused to allow DOGE access to classified information, sources confirmed to CBS News. Matt Hopson, tapped by Mr. Trump to be USAID chief of staff just two weeks earlier, resigned shortly afterward and USAID’s website went dark. By the end of that week, nearly all of the agency’s staff were put on administrative leave and all of its overseas staff were ordered to be shuttered. 

Meanwhile, a USAID deputy administrator was put on administrative leave in February for issuing memos saying the agency had failed to implement humanitarian assistance due to “political leadership” at the agency and DOGE. 

Mr. Trump signed an executive order his first day in office that froze federal funding for foreign assistance for 90 days amid a review of foreign aid, although the State Department later issued a waiver for “life-saving “life-saving humanitarian assistance,” defined as “life-saving medicine, medical services, food, shelter, and subsistence assistance, as well as supplies and reasonable administrative costs as necessary to deliver such assistance.” 

The Supreme Court last week declined to halt a lower court order that required the Trump administration to unfreeze nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funding, which could clear the way for reimbursements for organizations that have done work for USAID overseas. Arguments in the lower court case are still ongoing.