Secretary of State Rubio Made Acting Administrator of USAID

(Compiled from Reuters, RCP and OANN) – Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Monday that he has been made acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

President Donald Trump and his team are having discussions about merging USAID into the State Department in order to significantly reduce the size of the agency’s workforce for efficiency purposes, a senior White House official told Reuters on Monday.

The Trump administration planned to send a notification to Congress soon on Trump’s plans to revamp USAID, the official said. Trump has entrusted Elon Musk to oversee the project, the official added.

“There are discussions about merging USAID into the State Department to significantly reduce the size of the workforce for efficiency purposes and to ensure their spending is in line with the president’s agenda,” the official said.

“President Trump has entrusted Elon to oversee the efficiency of this agency,” the official said of the Tesla CEO who has become a close Trump adviser.

Secretary Rubio made the announcement during his five-nation trip to Central America, while answering questions from the press at a maintenance firm, Aeroman, in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador.

When questioned by a reporter about USAID, Secretary Rubio explained:

My frustration with USAID goes back to my time in Congress. It’s a completely unresponsive agency. It’s supposed to respond to policy directives of the State Department, and it refuses to do so.

The functions of USAID—there are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy — but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy.

I said very clearly during my confirmation hearing that every dollar we spend and every program we fund will be aligned with the national interest of the United States. USAID has a history of ignoring that and deciding that it’s somehow a global charity separate from the national interest.

These are taxpayer dollars. I am very troubled by these reports that they have been unwilling to cooperate with people who are asking simple questions about what these programs do, who gets the money, who our contractors are, and who is funded. That level of insubordination makes it impossible to conduct a mature and serious review that I think our foreign policy, writ large, should have.

We are spending taxpayer money here. These are not donor dollars. These are taxpayer dollars, and we owe the American people the assurance that every dollar we are spending abroad is being spent on something that furthers our national interest. So far, a lot of the people that work at USAID have simply refused to cooperate.

A reporter next asked Secretary Rubio: Are you currently in charge of USAID? To which he responded:

I am the acting director of USAID. I’ve delegated that authority to someone, but I stay in touch with him. Again, our goal was to go in and align our foreign aid to the national interest.

But if you go to mission after mission and embassy after embassy around the world, you will often find that, in many cases, USAID is involved in programs that run counter to what we’re trying to do in our national strategy with that country or with that region.

That cannot continue.

USAID is not an independent, non-governmental entity. It is an entity that spends taxpayer money, and it needs to spend it—as the statute says—in alignment with the policy directives that come from the Secretary of State, the National Security Council, and the President.

For 20 or 30 years, people have tried to reform it, and it refuses to reform. It refuses to cooperate.

When we were in Congress, we couldn’t even get answers to basic questions about programs. That’s not going to continue. I’ve articulated my challenges with it, and they go back to my time in Congress.

We would ask them questions: “Who does this program fund? Who gets the money?”

The responses we got: ‘We won’t tell you.’  —  ‘We don’t need to tell you.’  —  ‘We’re apolitical.’

American foreign policy isn’t apolitical. American foreign policy is about furthering the interests of the United States.

If someone wants to spend apolitical dollars, they should spend private dollars. Go start a charity, and you can fund anyone you want.

But if you’re going to spend taxpayer money, then you need to spend it furthering the national interest of the United States. That’s exactly what I said at my confirmation hearing, and this is not just my frustration. This has been a frustration for almost a quarter-century, spanning multiple administrations. It’s going to stop and it is going to end.

The reporter then asked:  “A lot of the money USAID spends that is being criticized as ‘charitable,’ you used that word, or welfare for poor countries. Defenders of USAID and some members of Congress say it is America’s national interest and promotes stability or buys America goodwill overseas. What is you reaction to that? Do you think USAID does good work and you have issues with some of the specifics spending?”

Secretary Rubio then explained,

“My issue, as I said, is that there are things USAID does that we should continue to do, and we will continue to do. But everything they do has to be in alignment with the national interest and the foreign policy of the United States.”

The attitude that USAID has adopted over the years is, “No, we are independent of the national interest. We fund programs irrespective of whether they align with foreign policy.” That’s ridiculous. These are taxpayer dollars. Every penny that we spend in foreign aid needs to be in furtherance of and aligned with the national interest and foreign policy of the United States.

So, this is not about ending USAID programs. There are things it does that are good, and there are things it does that raise strong questions. It’s about the way it operates. They’re supposed to take direction from the State Department on policy. They do not take policy direction. They are uncooperative when you ask questions.

When you try to find out basic information, their attitude is, “We don’t have to answer to you because we are independent. We answer to no one.”

That is not true, and that will no longer be the case.

USAID employees were reportedly told early on Monday to [stay home from the] Washington offices — after Musk asserted that President Donald Trump had agreed to shut it down. USAID staffers also received an email that its Washington headquarters would be closed on the same day, according to two sources who spoke with Fox News Digital.

Nonetheless, thousands of USAID personnel have already been let go, and activities have been halted in the two weeks since Trump took office.

According to USAID officials, more than 600 additional employees were shut out of the assistance agency’s computer systems overnight. Those who remained in the system received emails stating that “at the direction of Agency leadership,” the HQ building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, February 3.”

Compiled from reports published Feb. 3, 2025 at Reuters, RCP (RealClearPolitics) and OANN (OneAmericaNewsNetwork). Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission.