The Trump administration has not yet said whether it plans to eliminate the agency or give the State Department more authority over USAID.
The website of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) went offline on Feb. 1 following President Donald Trump’s freeze on foreign aid and worldwide development funding.
During his first day in office, Trump placed a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid. His executive order forced the furloughs or layoffs of thousands of employees and shut down thousands of programs worldwide.
As of Sunday evening, the USAID website is still down. Between 800 and 900 institutional support contractors from the Global Health and Humanitarian Assistance bureaus have already been laid off in recent days, a person familiar with the agency’s developments told The Epoch Times. The person did not know the exact number of direct staff remaining after the firings, but said they would be in a minority.
Congressional Democrats have expressed concern that USAID may cease to act as an independent agency if Trump attaches it to the State Department. They have said that USAID is vital to national security and that Trump lacks the legal authority to eliminate a congressionally funded independent agency.
However, Trump and congressional Republicans have said that much of the agency’s foreign aid and development programs are wasteful and have supported causes that advance left-leaning political agendas.
The concerns over the administration’s plans with USAID arose two weeks after it froze billions of dollars of U.S. security assistance and humanitarian development. The United States is the largest donor of humanitarian aid in the world.
President John F. Kennedy formed USAID to counter Soviet influence at the height of the Cold War. Currently, the agency is crucial to the U.S. efforts in curtailing the influence of the Chinese regime, which has robust foreign influence operations.
Kennedy signed the Foreign Assistance Act in 1961 and then an executive order making USAID an independent agency.
By Jacob Burg
