USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, will be merged into the State Department with significant cuts in the workforce, but it will remain a humanitarian aid entity, three U.S. officials told CBS News.
Officials in President Trump’s administration are expected to announce the moves in the coming days. Discussions about the extent of the funding reductions remained fluid on Monday.
Mr. Trump made Secretary of State Marco Rubio the acting administrator of USAID, sources said, and Rubio himself soon confirmed it to reporters traveling with him in El Salvador. ABC News earlier reported his status as chief. Rubio said he has designated his acting authority to handle day-to-day responsibilities to someone else, although he didn’t say whom.
USAID oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in about 120 countries around the world. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, USAID “provides assistance to strategically important countries and countries in conflict; leads U.S. efforts to alleviate poverty, disease, and humanitarian need; and assists U.S. commercial interests by supporting developing countries’ economic growth.”
Foreign aid overall, of which USAID is one part, accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget.
Rubio told reporters that U.S. tax dollars need to further U.S. national interests, and “USAID has a history of sort of ignoring that and deciding that they’re somehow a global charity.”
Mr. Trump said Sunday the agency was “run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out.”
USAID headquarters was closed on Monday because of a security incident, sources said, but the incident stemmed from efforts over the weekend by personnel from the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, to access USAID systems.
Sources told CBS News it was related to the USAID chief of staff, Matt Hopson, a recent Trump appointee, who attempted to block DOGE officials from getting access to USAID systems. Two top security officials were fired Monday for attempting to block access to DOGE, according to multiple sources. Hopson resigned Sunday.
Musk, the Trump administration’s billionaire adviser, had said he’d spoken in detail about USAID with Mr. Trump. “He agreed we should shut it down,” Musk said in a late-night live session on his social media platform X.
Not all of Mr. Trump’s top advisers agreed with the idea of shutting down the agency completely, several sources said.
