{"id":34560,"date":"2025-02-27T14:08:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T14:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/27\/trump-administration-cutting-90-of-usaid-foreign-aid-contracts-documents-show\/"},"modified":"2025-02-27T14:08:35","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T14:08:35","slug":"trump-administration-cutting-90-of-usaid-foreign-aid-contracts-documents-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/27\/trump-administration-cutting-90-of-usaid-foreign-aid-contracts-documents-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration cutting 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts, documents show"},"content":{"rendered":"

The sheer scale of cuts the Trump administration<\/a> is looking to carry out at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been revealed, with nearly 15,000 grants worth $60 billion set to be eliminated, according to internal documents.<\/p>\n

The grants amount to about 90% of foreign aid contracts and come after a review on spending by the State Department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

USAID aid became an early target of the Trump administration, with the president\u00a0being a longtime critic of overseas spending, arguing that it does not benefit the American taxpayer and going so far as to call those who run the top agency “radical lunatics.”<\/p>\n

USAID INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIRED EMPLOYEES GIVES THEM 15 MINUTES TO GATHER BELONGINGS FROM SHUTTERED DC BUILDING<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans argue it is wasteful, promotes liberal agendas and should be enfolded into the State Department, while Democrats say it saves lives abroad and helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies.<\/p>\n

In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multi-year USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion, according to a State Department memo reviewed by the Associated Press.<\/p>\n

The State Department memo described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administration\u2019s monthlong block on foreign aid funding.<\/p>\n

“In response, State and USAID moved rapidly,” targeting USAID and State Department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract terminations, the memo said.<\/p>\n

The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.” More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”<\/p>\n

U.S.\u00a0Supreme Court<\/a>\u00a0Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a federal judge\u2019s order that required the Trump administration to pay around $2 billion in foreign aid funds to contractors by midnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

SECRETARY OF STATE RUBIO CONFIRMS BECOMING ACTING USAID CHIEF<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The ruling comes after the\u00a0Trump administration<\/a>\u00a0asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to block the release of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding, which the federal judge had required by midnight. Officials had said they would not be able to comply with the judge\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

USAID was set up in the early 1960s to act on behalf of the U.S. to deliver aid across the globe, particularly in impoverished and underdeveloped regions.\u00a0The agency now operates out of 60 nations and employs some 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas \u2013 though most of the on-the-ground work is contracted out to third-party organizations funded by USAID,\u00a0according to a BBC report.<\/p>\n

But the agency has come in for considerable criticism as Trump and Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) look to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Musk likened the agency to “not an apple with a worm in it,” but “just a ball of worms.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You\u2019ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It\u2019s beyond repair,” Musk wrote on X earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Trump has moved to gut the agency after imposing a 90-day pause on foreign aid.\u00a0The Trump administration plans to gut the agency and intends to leave fewer than 300 staffers on the job out of the current 8,000 direct hires and contractors.\u00a0He has also appointed Secretary of State\u00a0Marco Rubio<\/a>\u00a0as the acting director of USAID.<\/p>\n

The news comes as thousands of staffers were notified weeks ago about pending dismissals. Some were seen leaving Washington, D.C., offices for the last time on Friday carrying boxes scrawled with messages that seemed to be directed at\u00a0President Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the Senate DOGE Caucus Chairwoman, recently\u00a0published a list<\/a>\u00a0of questionable projects and programs she says USAID has helped fund over the years, including $20 million to produce a Sesame Street show in Iraq.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several more examples<\/a>\u00a0of questionable spending have been uncovered at USAID, including more than\u00a0$900,000 to a “Gaza-based terror charity” called Bayader Association for Environment and Development and a $1.5 million program slated to “advance diversity, equity,<\/i>\u00a0and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.”<\/p>\n

Fox News\u2019 Bill Mears, Andrew Mark Miller,\u00a0Aubrie Spady,\u00a0Deirdre Heavey, Caitlin McFall, Morgan Phillips and Emma Colton as well as Reuters\u00a0and The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sheer scale of cuts the Trump administration is looking to carry out at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been revealed, with nearly 15,000 grants worth $60 billion set to be eliminated, according to internal documents. The grants amount to about 90% of foreign aid contracts and come after a review on … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}