(The Center Square) – Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that 83% of contracts at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have been officially cancelled.
The announcement is the crescendo to several weeks of controversy and drama at the federal foreign aid agency as Elon Musk and the Department of Government efficiency unveiled a string of foreign spending projects that were difficult to defend.
“After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID,” Rubio wrote on X Monday. “The 5,200 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.”
Questions remain about the long-term funding of USAID, especially whether Congress’ upcoming spending bill will include cuts commensurate with the cancelled contracts and therefore lower budgetary needs.
A long list of controversial spending examples highlighted by Musk and President Donald Trump, a handful of which turned out to be half true, have largely discredited the agency for many Americans and put Democrats in a difficult position, though most have defended USAID.
Democrats have argued that the cuts have extended to worthwhile programs and that Musk and his team have created chaos in the federal government and obtained access to sensitive data. Others have questioned Musk’s authority, though Musk always says he is obeying Trump’s orders.
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department,” Rubio said.
“Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform,” Rubio added.
Musk responded to Rubio’s post on X, calling it “tough but necessary.
“Good working with you,” Musk wrote on X. “The important parts of USAID should always have been with Dept. of State.”
USAID cuts are just the first of many federal cuts expected to come from DOGE.
Trump highlighted many of the federal spending projects uncovered by DOGE during his joint address to Congress last week.
“Just listen to some of the appalling waste we have already identified,” Trump told lawmakers on both sides of the aisle during the televised address.
Trump went on to rattle off more than a dozen examples from “$22 billion from HHS to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens” to “$45 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma.”
Many of his critiques drew laughter from attendees, such as when he pointed to federal spending of “$40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants,” quipping that “Nobody knows what that is.”
While not all of Trump’s examples were U.S. tax dollars going overseas, many were, such as “$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,” another laugh line, or “$60 million for Indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America.”
From millions of taxpayer dollars for circumcisions in Mozambique, “left-wing propaganda in Moldova,” or the Arab “Sesame Street,” Trump’s joint address really became a eulogy for what foreign federal aid once was.
“This is just the beginning,” Trump continued in that speech, putting other federal agencies on notice.
