Whatever USAID was or wasn't meant to be when President John F. Kennedy created the program by executive order in 1961, it effectively is no more.
Wall Street Mav reported on Sunday that the White House intends to "eliminate roughly $60 billion in foreign aid spending and terminate 92% of grants issued by the US Agency for International Development (USAID)."
"The figures were included in a State Department memo detailing the results of a 90-day review of US foreign aid ordered by President Trump," which identified "nearly 15,000 grants and targeted almost 10,000 for elimination — the majority of which were issued by USAID."
Trump seriously wasn't wasting time, was he? That 90-day review he ordered had to have started nearly two months before he was sworn in — or just days after defeating Kamala Harris on Election Day. Either that or his 90-day review was completed with DOGE-like efficiency. My guess is the latter because can you even imagine anyone in the still-extant Biden administration going along with a Trump order before he was sworn in? Hell, his own administration barely cooperates with him now. They don't call it "the Deep State" for nothing.
Whatever the case, the White House isn't messing around with these cuts: Reuters reported today that Nicholas Enrich, USAID's acting assistant administrator for global health, released a seven-page letter complaining that "political leadership" — the Trump administration — "had made it impossible to deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance around the world."
"Twenty minutes later, Enrich sent another email, which was also seen by Reuters, that he had 'just received notification that I have been placed on administrative leave, effective immediately.'"
