The U.S. State Department confirmed Wednesday that the Trump administration is eliminating thousands of foreign assistance awards and grants at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Peter Marocco, brought in by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to help run USAID, said in a statement to the federal district court presiding over two consolidated
lawsuits brought against the administration by aid organizations that following a review, Secretary of State Marco Rubio decided to cut roughly 92% of the agency’s grants, reported NPR.
According to a State Department memo
reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the 92% figure reflects 5,800 grants valued at $54 billion at USAID that Trump administration officials are set to terminate. Auditors scrutinized over 9,100 more grants at the State Department, 4,100 of which — valued at $4.4 billion — are slated for elimination.
‘Continuing this program is not in the national interest.’
“USAID evaluated 6,200 multi-year awards with $58.2 billion in value remaining,” a State Department spokesman
said in a statement to Axios. “Nearly 5,800 awards with $54 billion in value remaining were identified for elimination as part of the America First agenda.”
In terms of awards that survived the cuts, roughly 500 at USAID and 2,700 at the State Department will remain.
Contractors learned of the award and grant terminations in a memo from USAID’s office of acquisition and assistance. A copy of the memo obtained by NPR stated that Rubio and Marocco “have determined your award is not aligned with Agency priorities and made a determination that continuing this program is not in the national interest.”
President Donald Trump
noted in an aid-freezing executive order on his first day in office that the “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”
He further indicated that it would be the “policy of United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.”
In turn, the State Department ordered a freeze on new funding for virtually all U.S. foreign assistance on Jan. 24.
Following a pair of lawsuits by aid organizations, a Biden judge issued a restraining order, requiring that the funding be released.
The U.S. Supreme Court
temporarily blocked U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali’s restraining order Wednesday evening.
In addition to eliminating awards and grants to wasteful programs — for instance, USAID
previously blew $45 million on DEI scholarships in Burma, $2 million on sex-change activism in Guatemala, and $20 million for a “Sesame Street” show in Iraq — the Trump administration has placed all personnel at USAID “with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs” on administrative leave and is firing 1,600 positions at the agency that are presently occupied.
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