WASHINGTON: USAID personnel were told on Friday that all positions not required by law would be eliminated, after the State Department notified Congress it would discontinue the agency’s functions that do not align with Trump administration priorities.

The State Department informed Congress of its intent to reorganise USAID, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

A statement from Rubio said USAID had “strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high.”

“We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens,” it said.

Employees told all positions not required by law would be eliminated

After President Donald Trump began his second term on January 20, billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) launched a drive to shrink USAID and merge its remnants into the State Department. The administration has since fired hundreds of staff and contractors and terminated billions of dollars in services on which tens of millions of people around the world depended.

Rubio said earlier this month that more than 80 per cent of all USAID programs had been cancelled.

Meanwhile, USAID staff were informed of the decision to eliminate all posts that are not legally mandated by an internal memo from Jeremy Lewin, a member of DOGE, who has been acting as a deputy administrator at the agency.

In the memo, which was reviewed by Reuters, Lewin said all USAID positions not set in law will be eliminated and that all agency personnel around the world would shortly receive emails notifying them of the decision. Staff would be given the choice of termination on July 1 or September 2, the memo said.

Over the next three months, the State Department would assume USAIDs remaining “life-saving and strategic aid programming,” the memo said.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2025