US Secretary of State Rubio terminates all USAID positions abroad: Report

By the end of September, there will be no such thing as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), The Guardian reported on Monday, because all of its overseas staff will be terminated. 

Many, if not most, are local hires who have depended on a USAID salary for years and sometimes decades to support their families. 

The Guardian attributed the revelation to a State Department cable that it had obtained. It said the chiefs of mission at embassies in more than 100 countries have been notified that a significant overhaul is coming. 

“The Department of State is streamlining procedures under National Security Decision Directive 38 to abolish all USAID overseas positions,” the cable said.

The State Department and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “will assume responsibility for foreign assistance programming previously undertaken by USAID” from 15 June, it added. 

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In early March, Rubio said that US President Donald Trump's purge of the six-decade-old USAID was complete and that 5,200 of its 6,200 programmes had been eliminated. 

The remaining programmes, he said, would now be administered “more effectively” under the State Department and in consultation with Congress.

The axing of the aid agency was an initiative from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, which aimed to save Washington billions in what it believed was unnecessary spending.

Among its earliest finds was what the administration described as $50worth of condoms sent by the US "to Hamas".

It was then revealed that it was a programme to prevent sexually transmitted diseases in the rural province of Gaza, Mozambique.

Musk departed the administration two weeks ago. 

Since the Trump administration announced an immediate suspension of all foreign assistance, blocking ongoing aid programmes and freezing new funding, humanitarian workers around the world have been trying to work out exactly what this means for the millions of vulnerable people they are trying to keep alive.

Middle East Eye reported on the impact of the initial USAID cuts on 1.8 million Sudanese experiencing famine. Food boxes sent by the US were rotting in warehouses because the agency no longer provided the money needed for the actual distribution. 

Since 1946, the Middle East and North Africa have been the biggest recipients of US financial assistance. Between April 2023 and April 2024, Congress appropriated around $9bn for the region.

While most of the aid went towards military assistance, a fraction was funnelled into democracy programmes via USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-autonomous agency funded largely by the US Congress.

MEE reported in May of this year that the Trump cuts to USAID have already impacted human rights defenders in the region who were reliant on the small grants to relocate and resettle abroad.

Although modest in scope, the money provided a lifeline for exiled human rights activists.

middleeasteye.net