The website of the US Agency for International Aid appeared to be offline on Saturday with no explanations as President Donald Trump-led administration considered bringing the agency under the State Department’s control.
The sudden shutdown comes in the backdrop of Donald Trump’s two-week-old freeze on foreign aid and development worldwide.
Congressional Democrats have long been battling against the president’s idea of stripping down the agency of its independence, saying that he has no legal authority to eliminate a congressionally funded independent agency. Democrats argued that USAID’s work is essential to American national security.
Earlier, a Reuters report cited two sources familiar with the matter to say that the Trump administration was moving towards taking away the freedom of the slimmed-down USAID.
Trump froze foreign aid saying that it has been put under review to ensure that tens of billions of dollars worth of such assistance across the world is aligned with his ‘America First’ policy and not a waste of taxpayer money.
A source reportedly said that White House was looking at legal authorities that Trump could use to issue an executive order to end USAID’s independence, saying that he could sign such a directive as soon as Saturday as well.
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy in a post on X said that presidents cannot eliminate congressionally appropriated federal agencies by executive order, adding that Trump was poised to “double down on a constitution crisis”.
“That’s what a despot — who wants to steal the taxpayers’ money to enrich his billionaire cabal — does,” he added.
Notably, America is the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid by far. It spends less than 1 per cent of its budget on foreign assistance, a smaller share overall than some other countries.
JFK’s creation: USAID
USAID was created by former President John F Kennedy at the peak of the Cold War to counter the Soviet Union influence. Today, the agency is at the center of the US challenges to the growing influence of China, which successfully operates a “Belt and Road” foreign program of its own.
The Congress had passed the Foreign Assistance Act in 1961, a law which Kennedy signed and issued an executive order establishing USAID as an independent agency.
As of late Saturday afternoon, the USAID flags and signs were still up outside its headquarters in Washington.
In addition, billionaire and department of government efficiency co-chair Elon Musk has also advised Trump to reduce the federal government and endorsed dissolving of the USAID in his X posts.
“Live by executive order, die by executive order,” Musk posted in reference to USAID.
President Trump, on his first day in office on January 20, placed an unprecedented 90-day freeze on foreign aid. The move shut down thousands of programs around the world and forced the furloughs or layoffs of many thousands.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since then reportedly moved to keep more kinds of strictly life-saving emergency programs going during the freeze.
He had said on Thursday that the USAID’s programs were being reviewed to eliminate any works that are not in the US national interest, saying nothing about the elimination of the agency.
Rubio had said that the freeze was “getting a lot more cooperation” from recipients of humanitarian, development and security assistance.
(with AP inputs)