By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-28 22:35:47 | Updated at 2025-03-31 14:07:35
2 days ago
WASHINGTON — The State Department formally announced Friday it is closing the US Agency for International Development (USAID) after the Trump administration prevailed in a federal court case challenging the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cost-cutting actions.
“Foreign assistance done right can advance our national interests, protect our borders, and strengthen our partnerships with key allies. Unfortunately, USAID strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Ex-DOGE official Jeremy Lewin announced USAID’s shuttering in an internal memo earlier Friday — and said the State Department “intends to assume responsibility for many” of the agency’s functions and programs, according to ABC News.
“Thanks to President Trump, this misguided and fiscally irresponsible era is now over. We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens,” Rubio added.
“We are continuing essential lifesaving programs and making strategic investments that strengthen our partners and our own country. This is yet another promise made and delivered to the American people.”
Members of Congress were also informed of the decision to move USAID operations inside the State Department by July 1 — while “discontinuing the remaining” agency functions “that do not align with Administration priorities.”
With an annual budget of roughly $40 billion, USAID was responsible for funding critical health care and foreign aid programs but had also been criticized by Republican lawmakers for years for footing the bill for left-wing programs.
House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Brian Mast (R-Fla.) had called out several USAID grants last month — including $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam, $47,000 for “a transgender opera in Colombia” and $32,000 for the production of a Peruvian “transgender comic book,” the Daily Mail first reported.
The move had been in the works, but was given a boost by a federal appeals court decision earlier Friday by a three-judge panel on the Richmond, Va.-based Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals.
Circuit Judges Paul Niemeyer, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, and Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., an appointee of President Trump during his first term, rejected a request to halt Musk’s termination of employees and contracts brought by 26 current and former USAID employees.
The employees claimed Musk was unconstitutionally acting as the DOGE administrator — and circumventing Congress — when he moved to scrap agency operations.
But DOJ attorneys argued in their filings that Musk was serving as a senior adviser to Trump, not as DOGE administrator, and that the Secretary of State was in fact USAID’s leader and approved of the federal-budget-trimming moves.
“The only evidence cited by plaintiffs in support of their motion, which was subsequently relied on by the district court, were social media posts and news reports,” wrote Quattlebaum of Maryland federal judge Theodore Chuang’s decision to pause DOGE’s actions.
“To be sure, Musk claimed involvement in the USAID decisions in those posts and reports. But that is not the point because no one disputes his involvement,” they said, siding with the Trump administration.
“The question is whether Musk both directed those decisions and did so without the approval or ratification of USAID officials. And no record evidence shows that he did.”
Circuit Judge Roger Gregory, an appointee of former president Bill Clinton, concurred — even as he accused the Trump administration of having “unconstitutionally invaded the role of the Legislature, upsetting the separation of powers.”
“We may never know how many lives will be lost or cut short by the Defendants’ decision to abruptly cancel billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid. We may never know the lasting effect of Defendants’ actions on our national aspirations and goals,” Gregory wrote in his order.
“But those are not the questions before the Court today. The question before us is whether Defendants have satisfied their burden for a stay of the district court’s injunction pending their appeal to this Court,” he said.
Per the State Department memo, USAID may now rehire some employees to “assume the responsible administration of USAID’s remaining life-saving and strategic aid programming” while “all non-statutory positions at USAID will be eliminated.”
“This transfer will significantly enhance efficiency, accountability, uniformity, and strategic impact in delivering foreign assistance programs — allowing our nation and President to speak with one voice in foreign affairs,” the memo stated.
“It will also obviate the need for USAID to continue operating as an independent establishment.”
It’s likely the move, coupled with the circuit court’s dismissal of the temporary restraining order against DOGE, will result in further legal challenges.
