“We’re shutting it down,” Elon Musk said over the weekend in reference to USAID, the country’s main aid agency, which oversees around $40 billion a year in spending and has been around since the early 1960s. Following two weeks of chaos across the aid industry after the new US administration ordered a 90-day freeze on nearly all foreign assistance, it appears the Trump administration is attempting to move forward with a plan to close the agency and merge its responsibilities with the State Department, though legal challenges are likely.
Speaking Monday afternoon, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was serving as acting administrator for the aid agency. “This is not about ending USAID,” Rubio told the press, rather it was aimed at ensuring “everything they do has to be in alignment with the national interest and the foreign policy of the United States.” MORE