Devex Newswire: The slow but sure dismantling of USAID

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that he is acting head of USAID, while lawmakers are blocked from entering the agency’s headquarters..And that was just a snippet from yesterday afternoon.

Also in today’s edition: We’re still awaiting a formal order to fold USAID in the State Department, but the takeover is essentially well underway.

+ Join us tomorrow, Feb. 5, for an event with Mark Dybul, former head of PEPFAR and the Global Fund, who will discuss the changing nature of global health politics. Save your spot now. This event is for Devex Pro members. Not a Pro member yet? We offer a 15-day free trial.

Hostile takeover?

USAID offices were shuttered yesterday after most employees were told not to bother coming in, but that didn’t stop a group of Democratic lawmakers from trying to enter the building during a rally in Washington, D.C. They were blocked and instructed to speak to the U.S. Department of State instead.

“They referred us to the State Department as if USAID had already been rolled in,” Senator Chris Van Hollen said.

Makes sense. At around the same time, Rubio declared that the State Department would reorganize and absorb “certain bureaus, offices, and missions of USAID” — while noting that “the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law” — according to a letter he wrote to the U.S. Congress that was obtained exclusively by my colleague Elissa Miolene.

In it, Rubio also announced he was acting administrator of USAID, but it was what he said next that was perhaps more notable. Rubio told the lawmakers that he had authorized Peter Marocco, the director of foreign assistance at the State Department, to also serve as deputy administrator at USAID — giving him the authority to “begin the process of engaging in a review and potential reorganization of USAID’s activities.”  

Marocco has been criticized for his scorched-earth campaign against U.S. foreign aid.

Democratic lawmakers blasted the move to subsume USAID into the State Department as illegal.

“We will do everything we can to block State Department nominees from going forward until this illegal action is reversed,” said Van Hollen at the rally. “Action in the courts is going to be essential, and it's already underway in terms of people looking at this because it's clearly a violation of laws.”

“This is a constitutional crisis,” Sen. Chris Murphy added. “The people get to decide how their taxpayer money is spent. Elon Musk does not get to decide.”

Musk, head of the budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, would beg to differ.

He used his social media platform X to slam USAID, saying it is “time for it to die” and calling its staff “an arm of the radical-left globalists.” Meanwhile, the shuttering of USAID headquarters continues. According to a communication seen exclusively by my colleague Sara Jerving, USAID staff members were told their headquarters would remain closed on Tuesday.

Read:

• USAID may be reorganized, absorbed by the State Department, Rubio says

• US lawmakers blocked from USAID, told to go to State Department instead

• Scoop: USAID headquarters shuttered for second day

A merger in all but name only

“In a lot of ways, this answers the question I’ve been trying to figure out for the last two weeks. This is a merger,” one USAID official who saw Rubio’s letter to lawmakers tells Elissa.

Indeed, though U.S. President Donald Trump hasn’t issued an executive order formally merging the two entities, the State Department is clearly gobbling up USAID. Whether it makes USAID a toothless rump of itself or keeps it relatively intact remains to be seen, but all indications are that the agency is in deep trouble.

Thousands of USAID staffers have been let go, and thousands more have lost access to all USAID systems without notice, including those based in conflict zones across the world. The tumult started with Trump’s order to freeze most U.S. foreign aid pending a 90-day review, wreaking havoc on millions of people across the world who rely on that aid or work in the sector.

“It’s so shortsighted, and I don’t think it serves the president’s overall agenda of trying to get results,” a former Trump administration official tells my colleague Adva Saldinger. “The president only has so many tools in his toolbox, and one of his tools is foreign aid. He should use it, wield it, use it however [he] wants, but don’t destroy [foreign aid] because of some political ideology that some people have.”  

People in today’s Trump world, however, see things very differently. Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that USAID staffers “will literally not tell us what they are writing grants for, literally, or they will lie about it, or they will tell the new political appointees under the Trump administration, ‘I’m just not going to tell you that.’”

Rubio himself seemed to echo those accusations during his trip to Panama, telling reporters: “I’m very troubled by these reports that they have been unwilling to cooperate with people who are asking simple questions about what does this program do, who gets the money, who are our contractors, who’s funded. And that sort of level of insubordination makes it impossible to conduct the sort of mature and serious review that I think foreign aid writ large should have.”

In the Oval Office yesterday, Trump was asked whether dissolving USAID requires an act of Congress. “I don’t think so,” he said, “not if it’s an act of fraud” — without offering evidence of fraud.

Read: Dismantling without a merger — how Trump and Musk undermined USAID

ICYMI: A thousand more USAID contractors locked out of agency’s systems

The chilling effects

Let’s go from USAID to the United Nations, where Trump’s aid freeze is having a “moderate” to “severe” impact on the budgets of nearly 20 U.N. agencies, according to a confidential survey seen by my colleague Colum Lynch.

The Feb. 3 U.N. survey provides the most detailed account yet of the impact the U.S. foreign aid pause is having on the U.N.’s far-ranging work, Colum writes, noting that the World Food Programme, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization said they were already feeling the pinch.

The ripple effects, according to the survey, are worldwide. It says the freeze has undermined the U.N.’s ability to promote human rights, feed people in need, curb irregular migration from Latin America, support ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and it has weakened social cohesion while fueling extremism in the Middle East.

Scoop: UN sketches global map of mayhem from US aid freeze

+ How well do you remember the past month's headlines? Test your memory with our monthly news quiz!

When all else fails, try flattery

The U.N.’s top migration official, Amy Pope, who is seeking to stave off steep U.S. budget cuts, sought to make the case that her agency can help stem the tide of immigration into the U.S. — a key priority of the Trump administration.

Pope, the director general of the International Organization for Migration, says her agency has facilitated the voluntary return of 1.5 million migrants around the globe and is expanding its efforts to “help migrants return home, reintegrate, and rebuild their lives.”

She cites the resumption of IOM’s Assisted Voluntary Return programs in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama. She also highlighted a program in Haiti, where she says “thousands are returned each week.”

These were Pope’s first public remarks since the Trump administration ordered a sweeping stop-work order on U.S.-funded projects. It targeted some 60 IOM contracts, primarily responsible for supporting a long-standing U.S. resettlement program. If the U.S. ultimately terminates those contracts, it could result in the loss of as many as 5,000 jobs.

Nevertheless, Pope showered praise on Rubio for issuing a waiver allowing it and others to continue delivering lifesaving humanitarian assistance: “Secretary Rubio’s decision reinforces U.S. leadership in global humanitarian response, bringing stability and structure to complex displacement challenges.”

A polite rebuttal

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus used the occasion of the organization’s executive board meeting to counter some of the claims Trump made when he withdrew the U.S. from WHO, including “inappropriate political influence” as well as WHO’s “mishandling” of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tedros noted that his U.N. agency works to help its member states, but “politely” declines when their requests are not backed by scientific evidence. On COVID-19, Tedros reiterated that WHO asked for information from China the moment it “picked up signals of viral pneumonia in Wuhan” over five years ago, and alerted the world and provided guidance on how to protect populations.”

“Of course, there will be challenges and weaknesses, and there have been multiple independent reviews of the global response to COVID-19, with more than 300 recommendations to address” them, he added.

Read: Tedros refutes Trump’s claims of WHO’s lack of independence 

ICYMI: Trump's executive order on WHO, explained (Pro)

+ For the latest insider reporting on global health, be sure to sign up to Devex CheckUp, a free, weekly newsletter.

In other news

Uganda’s Ministry of Health, along with WHO and other partners, launched the first vaccine trial for the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus. [Africanews]

Local authorities in the Gaza Strip urged donors to send tents, calling temporary shelters a top humanitarian need. [Al Jazeera]

France will host a major AI summit — billed as a “wake-up call” for Europe — with global tech leaders and officials gathering in Paris from Feb.10 to 11.  [AFP via Barron’s]

Sign up to Newswire for an inside look at the biggest stories in global development.