WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump\u2019s administration told Congress on Friday it would cut nearly all remaining jobs at the US Agency for International Development and shut the agency, even as Trump promised that the US would provide assistance to Myanmar following a devastating earthquake.
\nHumanitarian aid experts expressed alarm at the new cuts to an agency whose humanitarian aid has gained Washington influence and saved lives across the globe for more than 60 years. USAID plays a major role in coordinating earthquake assistance.
\nThousands of USAID staff and Foreign Service officers assigned to the agency learned in an internal memo that all positions not required by law would be eliminated in July and September.
\nThe memo reviewed by Reuters was sent to staff by Jeremy Lewin, the agency\u2019s acting deputy administrator and a member of billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s job-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE oversaw a first round of cuts to USAID last month.
\nThe State Department notification to Congress of the job cuts, also seen by Reuters, said USAID missions worldwide would be closed and the agency\u2019s remaining functions would be folded into State.
\nCuts at the agency have thrown humanitarian efforts around the world into turmoil. The latest notice came on the day that a powerful earthquake hit Thailand and Myanmar, toppling buildings and killing scores of people. USAID has historically played a major role in coordinating disaster relief efforts.
\nA US appeals court on Friday
\nruled that Musk and DOGE can keep making cuts to USAID while they appeal a lower court order that had barred them from doing so.
\nUS Representative Gregory Meeks, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that closing USAID was illegal and aimed at withdrawing the US \u201cfrom its global leadership role with as much cruelty and disruption as possible.\u201d
\nThe exact number of personnel being fired was not immediately available. As of March 21, there were 869 US direct hire personnel on active duty and working, while 3,848 others were on paid administrative leave, according to Stand Up for Aid, a grassroots advocacy group.
\nThe terminations also included thousands of Foreign Service officers on assignment to USAID around the globe, according to a source familiar with the matter.
\nIn his memo, Lewin said agency personnel worldwide would shortly receive emailed termination notices giving them the choice of being fired on July 1 or September 2.
\nOver the next three months, the State Department would assume USAID\u2019s remaining \u201clife-saving and strategic aid programming,\u201d he said, adding that USAID personnel will not automatically be transferred to the department, which would conduct \u201ca separate and independent hiring process.\u201d
\nTrump in January ordered a 90-day freeze of all US foreign aid and a review of whether aid programs were aligned with his policy. He claimed without evidence that Musk had found fraud at the agency, which he said was run by \u201cradical left lunatics.\u201d
\nMusk and DOGE gained access to USAID\u2019s payment and email systems, froze many payments and told much of its staff they were being placed on leave. On February 3, Musk wrote on X that he had \u201cspent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.\u201d
\nOn Friday, a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department had notified the US Congress of its intent to reorganize USAID, saying the agency had \u201cstrayed from its original mission long ago.\u201d
\n\u201cWe are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens,\u201d Rubio said.
\nThe decision to cut the remaining USAID jobs sparked concern among humanitarian aid experts, who said the firings and funding cuts would prevent a concerted US response to the earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand.
\nIn a post on X, Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who is president of Refugees International, called the move \u201ca total abdication of decades of US leadership in the world.\u201d
\nHe said the firings will cut \u201cthe last remnants of the team that would have mobilized a USAID disaster response\u201d to the earthquake.
\nTrump on Friday said he had spoken with officials in Myanmar about the earthquake and that the US would provide assistance.
\nState Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the changes at USAID would not affect the administration\u2019s ability to deploy a Disaster Assistance Response Team, or DART, adding she could not give a timeline.
\nThe former USAID disaster response chief told Reuters the Trump administration\u2019s massive personnel and funding cuts have \u201ckneecapped\u201d the agency\u2019s ability to send disaster response teams to Thailand and Myanmar, opening the way to China and other US rival countries.
\n\u201cI suspect we will see very shortly Chinese teams showing up, if they haven\u2019t already, possibly Turkish, Russian, Indian teams really making their presence known in support of people that are really suffering right now in Thailand and Burma, and the US won\u2019t be there,\u201d said Sarah Charles, who served as assistant USAID administrator for humanitarian affairs until February 2024, using the former name of Myanmar.
\nCharles said contracts with urban search and rescue teams from Los Angeles and Virginia had been \u201cturned back on\u201d after being cut.
\nBut, she said commercial contracts for transporting those teams remained cut and non-governmental aid groups that normally would provide emergency water, sanitation and medical help had laid off staff or run out of funds due to Trump\u2019s foreign aid freeze.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s really devastating to watch in real time,\u201d she said.
\nRubio said earlier this month that more than 80 percent of all USAID programs had been canceled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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