USAID El Salvador closed with $1.1M in assets donated, disposed

In an effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, one of the Trump administration’s first crusades was to shutter U.S. foreign aid across the world. But as the months ticked by, more and more incidents of waste began to surface — from food assistance expiring in Dubai, HIV medication idling on shelves in South Sudan, and contraceptives incinerated in Europe — often with few staff, little guidance, and nowhere else for that aid to legally go. The first detailed account of that fallout arrived last week, when USAID’s independent watchdog released an audit examining canceled aid programs in a mission that lost every one of its 66 awards: El Salvador. The report shows that when those awards were canceled, over $1 million of U.S. government property was handed over to local institutions or retained by implementing partners, a process that was described by those on the ground as “chaotic.” “People who spent 20 to 30 years of their lives trying to care for this agency and this work were the ones that had to bring it all down,” a former USAID staffer in that mission told Devex. “It was completely cataclysmic.” The canceled awards in El Salvador were worth $1.9 million, the Office of Inspector General found — and when the mission was hollowed out, the staff in that mission needed to dispose of any assets that were associated with them. That included vehicles, construction materials, and other resources, along with 18 awards that were labeled “priority,” meaning they were associated with high-value medical supplies and vehicles. USAID policy allows assets to be transferred, retained for partner use, or reassigned within the U.S. government. But by late February, few of those options were practical. With no remaining USAID programs in-country and shifting guidance from Washington, staff and implementing partners were left to improvise — renting commercial storage, drafting interim disposal plans, and safeguarding equipment while awaiting approvals that often came weeks later. “The chaos was the constantly shifting guidance from and silence on questions to DC, along with having to close out this number of projects simultaneously,” said the former staffer. “Certain actions could only be certified by warranted contracting officers, who took on the risk on behalf of the government, leading to lots of fear of doing anything illegal.” The report reviewed the closeout of half those awards, choosing nine programs that had 40 priority assets worth a total of $1.1 million. That included programs focused on preventing gender-based violence, water security, and economic development initiatives, among other programs. All were canceled on Feb. 26, 2025, and by the time inspectors visited the mission in April 2025, most of the assets were still in limbo. With the entire mission slated to shutter, OIG noted that assets could not be transferred to another USAID program or redistributed within the agency. By late May, 30 of the 40 items had been donated to local nonprofits, universities, and Salvadoran government institutions. The remaining 10 were retained by implementing partners. In total, 26 vehicles — one worth more than $70,000 — were given away, not because they were obsolete or corruptly obtained, but because the programs that used them no longer existed. “It was truly a mess,” said the former staffer. “They were operating under chaotic conditions, while taking on lots of risk. The fact that there weren't cases of serious waste in the El Salvador context is actually quite a feat.” Elsewhere, the story is different. At least 500 tons of emergency food aid and $10 million of contraceptives are believed to have been torched, though the State Department has repeatedly declined to comment on the topic. Last week, Reuters reported that Russell Vought — the White House budget chief who led the charge to dismantle USAID — is using $15 million in USAID operating expenses to cover the costs of his security team. And earlier this month, the second-highest Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rhode Island Rep. Gabe Amo, introduced legislation to require the State Department to issue guidance on handling unused foreign aid supplies — and to ensure it is not destroyed, diverted, or allowed to expire. “They’ve chosen to burn food, trash medicine, and dismantle America’s moral leadership instead of feeding hungry families and saving lives,” Amo said in a statement. “Destroying aid Americans already paid for betrays taxpayers, undercuts our farmers and producers, and tells the world we no longer stand for anything.” In the meantime, the OIG will continue to focus on the closeout process, releasing reports for USAID missions in Egypt, Haiti, Pakistan, the Philippines, southern Africa, Ukraine, and the Regional Development Mission for Asia, the latter of which is based in Thailand. OIG is also working on a series of inspections of former USAID warehouses, which, as of May 2025, stored nearly $100 million in prepositioned food aid. That report has not yet been released. “Ensuring that these goods do not spoil or are otherwise damaged and that plans are in place for their storage and disposition are critical to preventing waste and enabling the U.S. government to continue to be ready to respond to emergency situations,” OIG’s announcement of that project stated. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on this story.