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The fight for USAID’s future, briefly explained
It’s a struggle with deadly consequences for vulnerable people around the world.
Patrick Reis was the senior politics and ideas editor at Vox. He previously worked at Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Politico, National Journal, and Seattle’s Real Change News. As a reporter and editor, he has worked on coverage of campaign politics, economic policy, the federal death penalty, climate change, financial regulation, and homelessness.
Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate the US Agency for International Development, the next step in its campaign against foreign assistance and a key test of whether anyone will check this administration’s power grabs.
What’s the latest? Secretary of State Marco Rubio this afternoon said he’d notified Congress that the administration intends to fully close USAID, effective July 1. The agency is to be folded into the State Department, almost all positions are set to be eliminated, and layoffs are slated to begin almost immediately, CNN reports.
Back up. Didn’t they do this already? Immediately upon taking office, the administration — led by Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” — began gutting USAID and froze spending on foreign assistance. Today makes it clear the administration aims to finish the job.
What does today’s news mean for foreign aid? Rubio said some of the agency’s functions would be taken over by the State Department and the rest would be eliminated. He did not specify what would remain, but the administration has been up-front about its plan to sharply curtail foreign assistance. That’s a decision with deadly consequences for vulnerable people around the world.
Does Trump have the power to do this? Congress passed a law codifying USAID’s existence, and — under the traditional understanding of the US system of checks and balances — only Congress has the power to shutter it. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered a temporary freeze of some of the dismantling effort, ruling that DOGE likely violated the Constitution.
What’s the big picture? Regardless of where the legal challenges end up, the administration has already done so much to gut USAID that there’s little to no chance of it being reassembled. It’s part of Trump’s pattern of asserting new powers, making irrevocable changes with those powers, and daring anyone to stop him.
And with that, it’s time to log off. I always feel weird delivering dark news and then imploring you to “log off,” but I do so because I don’t think doomscrolling — getting passively sucked in by social media — helps anyone. It saps our energy and appetite to make positive change. And positive change is possible! To that end, I want to reshare this piece from my colleague Sigal Samuel on how we can help people affected by cuts to foreign aid. I’ve shared it before, but today felt like a good day for a reprise. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you back here on Monday.
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