Last week, hundreds of internal contractors working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were put on unpaid leave, and some were terminated after President Donald Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on US foreign aid worldwide.
But for billionaire Elon Musk, temporarily freezing USAID funding isn’t enough.
“Time for it to die,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X on Monday as he branded USAID a “criminal organisation”.
“It’s beyond repair,” Musk said in a separate post, adding that Trump agrees it should be shut down.
The comments by Musk, who Trump appointed to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have sparked a growing debate over the future of the aid agency.
Here’s a look at what the agency is and its role globally:
What is happening?
USAID, whose website vanished on Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal bureaucracy and many of its programmes.
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“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out,” Trump said to reporters about USAID on Sunday night.
Musk’s call to shutter USAID came after security officials reportedly denied members of his cost-cutting task force access to restricted areas of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC.
Quoting unnamed officials, multiple US media outlets reported that USAID’s director of security, John Voorhees, and his deputy, Brian McGill, were placed on leave after denying DOGE personnel entry to secure areas over their lack of security clearances.
The representatives of DOGE, which was created in an executive order by Trump but is not a government department, were ultimately able to access areas with classified information after the confrontation, which was first reported by CNN.
The White House denied that DOGE personnel tried to access restricted areas, but Katie Miller, who serves in DOGE, appeared to acknowledge the task force’s attempted entry, writing on X that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances”.
Abolish USAID and all foreign aid. https://t.co/Vx239NYLeS
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) February 1, 2025
What was the reaction to Musk’s call to close USAID?
After Musk’s criticism, members of Congress took to social media to debate whether USAID could and should be permanently shuttered.
“Trump’s been purging and intimidating USAID employees. Now there’s a rumour he’ll dissolve USAID as an independent agency,” Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Party’s leader in the Republican-controlled Senate, said on X. “This’d be illegal and against our national interests.”
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Republican Senator Rand Paul responded to Schumer, saying: “Abolish USAID and all foreign aid.”
Democratic Senator Chris Coons also weighed in on X, saying eliminating the agency would make the US “less safe”.
“President Trump spent two weeks harassing and laying off USAID employees, and now his team is trying to gut the agency altogether,” he said on Sunday. “These are patriotic Americans who promote our leadership around the world.”
President Trump spent two weeks harassing and laying off USAID employees, and now his team is trying to gut the agency altogether. These are patriotic Americans who promote our leadership around the world.
They make us safer. Trump makes us less safe. https://t.co/QfQGlJBj2U— Senator Chris Coons (@ChrisCoons) February 2, 2025
What is USAID, and when did it begin?
In an effort led by then-President John F Kennedy, USAID was established as part of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. It brought major changes to US overseas programmes by combining several existing organisations and programmes into one, according to an archived version of USAID’s website.
“Until then, there had never been a single agency charged with foreign economic development,” according to the website.
According to the US government’s official website, USAID is the “principal US agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms”.
Andrew Natsios, a former USAID administrator, wrote in 2020 that the agency contributed to the US success during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
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“I would argue the greatest USAID success stories during the Cold War were those directly connected to US national interests,” he said. “These successes certainly benefited the United States, but they also benefited developing countries as they transitioned to become advanced developed countries.”
“While there certainly have been political aid failures, there have been far more successes.”
Before the freeze, the agency was the world’s largest single donor. In fiscal year 2023, the US disbursed $72bn of assistance worldwide on everything from women’s health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/AIDS treatments, energy security and anticorruption work.
USAID provided 42 percent of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024 and has a staff of more than 10,000 people.
Which countries have received the most aid?
In 2023, Ukraine received the most — $14.4bn from USAID.
The second-highest recipient, Jordan, received $770m in economic aid through USAID. Yemen and Afghanistan received $359.9m and $332m, respectively.
USAID isn’t the only US agency that disburses foreign aid, but it is the biggest with a kitty of $42.45bn, followed by the State Department ($19bn).
What criticism has USAID received over the years?
Criticism of the agency has ranged from its foreign policy agenda to its inefficiency.
In 2014, USAID was accused of secretly creating a “Cuban Twitter” called ZunZuneo to stir unrest and undermine the Cuban government. It was also criticised for its clandestine nature. USAID denied that the project was designed to create dissent.
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In 2023, Mexico’s president asked his US counterpart, Joe Biden, to stop USAID from funding groups hostile to his government, according to a letter presented to journalists, echoing previous Mexican criticism of US interventionism.
Then-President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador did not specify which Mexican groups the US should stop funding, but he has in the past accused several media organisations of being part of a conservative movement against his government.
“The US government, specifically through USAID, has for some time been financing organisations openly against the legal and legitimate government I represent,” he said in the letter. “This is clearly an interventionist act, contrary to international law and the relations which should prevail between free and sovereign states.”
While the US has long touted its foreign aid programmes as aimed at, in part, strengthening young democracies, it used USAID to support friendly authoritarian regimes during the Cold War, including Taiwan and South Korea when they were under military rule and the Democratic Republic of the Congo under Mobutu Sese Seko.
More recently, a performance audit commissioned by USAID’s Office of Inspector General and conducted by the independent certified public accounting firm of Williams, Adley & Company highlighted inefficiency and bureaucratic challenges the agency faced regarding indirect cost rates. Those rates refer to overhead or administrative costs that an organisation can charge to a federal grant or contract.
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“Indirect costs are a legitimate cost of doing business only to the extent that they are reasonable, allowable, and allocable,” according to 2024 findings on the USAID website.
The audit found that USAID’s systems needed improvement and noted that it does not have proper monitoring processes connected to indirect costs.
“USAID does not have proper documentation to support indirect costs charged,” it said.
What happens next?
For now, Trump has made no official announcement that USAID will be closed.
However, many fear the cessation of US funds could hurt Washington’s allies — and create a vacuum that its foes could gladly seek to fill.
Eastern Europe, for instance, has been a longtime geopolitical battleground where Western foreign policy interests often collide with those of Moscow or Beijing.
China’s influence in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa has been growing, and it has become an increasingly important trade partner and investor in recent years while the US cuts back on aid.
In October, the China Development Bank (CDB) announced that it had provided about $160bn to help finance hundreds of projects throughout Latin America. Sub-Saharan Africa received the most aid from the US in 2023, but China is increasing its presence there by providing competitive assistance.
Senator Coons said the possible closing of USAID creates even more room for China to expand its power.
“It debilitates American leadership and leaves the world more open to Chinese influence. It would be a massive mistake,” Coons said on Saturday on X.
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