Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83% of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contracts will officially be canceled.
“After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID,” Rubio wrote on X. “The 5200 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.”
“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,” he explained, going on to thank the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the “hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform.”
“Tough, but necessary. Good working with you,” Elon Musk responded. “The important parts of USAID should always have been with Dept of State.”
Rubio said in February that his “frustrations with USAID goes back to my time in Congress. It’s a completely unresponsive agency, it’s supposed to respond to policy directives of the state department and it refuses to do so.”
“Every dollar we spend and every program we fund will be aligned with the national interest of the United States,” he added. “USAID has a history of ignoring that and deciding that they’re a global charity. These are not donor dollars, these are taxpayer dollars.”
“We owe the American people the assurances that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest,” Rubio stated.
