Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team is finalising the dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development [USAID], ordering the firing of thousands of local workers and American diplomats and civil servants assigned to the agency overseas, two former top USAID officials and a source with knowledge of the situation said.
On Friday, Congress was notified that almost all of USAID's own employees are being fired by September, all of its overseas offices shut, and some functions absorbed into the State Department.
The latest move by Musk's Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] effectively will eliminate what is left of the agency's workforce.
"This is definitely the final closing out," said one of the former senior USAID officials.
President Donald Trump and Musk, his hand-picked adviser to oversee government cost-cutting, in February began the process of shuttering USAID and merging its operations into the State Department to ensure they conformed with Trump's "America First" policies. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The former officials and source familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that USAID’s human resources office told regional bureaus in a conference call that layoff notices were going to all of the more than 10,000 locally hired foreign nationals, effective in August.
The first former official said the call took place on Monday, adding that the local staff terminations could run afoul of labour laws in the countries where the fired workers are employed.
Notices also will be sent to US diplomats and civil servants assigned to work abroad for what has been the leading US foreign aid provider for more than 60 years, the former officials and the source said.
USAID sudden stop of funding dey cause global crisis as nutrition, health and education projects collapse from Asia go Africa and beyond, leave vulnerable communities for desperate situations.
Trump’s charge against USAID
Trump has claimed that the agency was rife with fraud and run by "radical left lunatics," while Musk falsely accused it of being a "criminal" organisation.
Thousands of USAID's own staff were placed on administrative leave — they received layoff notices on Friday — hundreds of contractors fired and more than 5,000 programmes terminated, disrupting global humanitarian aid efforts on which millions depend.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, USAID maintains missions in more than 60 countries, with most of its funds going to humanitarian aid and health programmes.
Top recipients included war-torn Ukraine and Democratic Republic of Congo, Jordan, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the genocide-hit Gaza.
A summary of the conference call circulated by one regional bureau and reviewed by Reuters confirmed the terminations of all locally hired foreign nationals and American diplomats and civil servants on assignment with USAID abroad.
It said more than 600 US diplomats are on secondment to USAID overseas, but provided no figure for the number of US civil service members. Most are to be terminated in July, when the intent is to close "all programmatic work."
"Every position eliminated; 100 percent of the agency is rif’d (Reduction in Force) or will be," the summary said, and advised personnel that no one would be retained and to "focus on things to make sure you’re getting the right benefits."
Former USAID chief Samantha Power has blasted Trump over his dismantling of the humanitarian agency, saying the move threatened America's national security and standing around the world.
"We are witnessing one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in US history," Power wrote in the New York Times in February.
Unless the dismantling is halted, Power wrote, "future generations will marvel that it wasn't China's actions that eroded US standing and global security" but rather "an American president and the billionaire he unleashed to shoot first and aim later."
Humanitarian aid accounts for just 1.2 percent of the US federal budget but American funds drive global development while also serving as the country's soft power abroad.
