Only 294 USAID staff to stay out of over 10,000 globally, sources say
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) out of the agency’s worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Washington’s primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, since the Republican president took office on Jan. 20.
The four sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.
“That’s outrageous,” said J. Brian Atwood, who served as head of USAID for more than six years, adding the mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency that has helped keep tens of millions of people around the world from dying.
‘Waste, abuse’
“A lot of people will not survive,” said Atwood, now a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute.
The US Department of State did not respond to a request for comment.
Earlier on X, the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency posted a video of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt detailing “waste and abuse” by USAID officials.
Leavitt named “some of the insane priorities” that USAID had been spending money on, like diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
She mentioned “$1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia workplaces; $70,000 for the production of a DEI musical in Ireland; $47,000 for a trans opera in Colombia; and $32,000 for a trans comic book in Peru.”
With Trump and Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, that USAID staff were “radical lunatics,” dozens of USAID staff have been put on leave, hundreds of internal contractors have been laid off and life-saving programs around the globe have been left in limbo.
Global leave
The administration announced on Tuesday it was going to put on leave all directly hired USAID employees globally, and recall thousands of personnel working overseas.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio had said the administration was identifying and designating programs that would be exempted from the sweeping stop-work orders, which have threatened efforts around the globe to stop the spread of disease, prevent famine and otherwise alleviate poverty.
Implementing partners of USAID are facing financial trouble on the back of stop-work orders from the State Department.
The overhaul will upend the lives of thousands of staff and their families.
The administration’s goal is to merge USAID with the State Department led by Rubio, who Trump has made acting USAID administrator.
However, it is not clear that he can merge the agencies unless Congress votes to do so, since USAID was created and is funded by laws that remain in place.
USAID employed more than 10,000 people around the world, two-thirds of them outside the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Termination notices
It managed more than $40 billion in fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which there is complete data.
Sources familiar with events at the agency on Thursday said some workers had begun receiving termination notices.
The USAID website said that as of midnight on Friday, Feb. 7, “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”
It said essential personnel expected to continue working would be informed by Thursday at 3 p.m. EST.
The agency provided aid to some 130 countries in 2023, many of them shattered by conflict and deeply impoverished.
