Canceling most USAID programs

Rubio thanks DOGE, says US is canceling most USAID programs

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the remaining programs from the now-shuttered government agency will operate under the State Department.

By Amanda Friedman

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the United States is canceling 83 percent of programs at the United States Agency for International Development, thanking Elon Musk’s DOGE team for its work amid reports of friction between the two men.

“The 5200 contracts that are now canceled 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 said in a post to X, the social media platform owned by Musk. “Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to freeze foreign aid shortly after returning to the White House as part of his administration’s efforts to curtail diversity, equity and inclusion and “woke” programs from the federal government. USAID was an early, high-profile target of the Trump administration’s crackdown. Most of USAID’s employees have been either laid off or put on leave and the agency’s name has been removed from the downtown Washington building that once housed its headquarters.

Rubio’s warm words for DOGE followed reports of a heated exchange between the secretary and Musk over concerns that the tech billionaire was overriding Trump’s Cabinet officials during a contentious meeting last week.

In coordination with Congress, Rubio said the remaining 18 percent of USAID’s programs, which represents roughly 1000, will now operate under the State Department.