By 11:59 p.m. ET this Friday, most U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) direct hire personnel around the world will be placed on leave, according to a notice on the agency website. Here’s what that is expected to look like.
According to the USAID archival site, its staff work in 100 countries around the world. It has more than 10,000 staff, per the Brookings Institution, and hundreds of thousands of intended beneficiaries.
With the news this week that President Donald Trump decided that the agency should be closed down and absorbed into the State Department, employees have been left confused. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday that he was appointing Peter Marocco as acting deputy administrator of USAID.
On Tuesday, Marocco sent a letter instructing employees to email a USAID official with their personal contact information so they could remain available during business hours, CNN reported. However, a USAID employee told the outlet that the email they sent bounced back and it said that person was also on leave.
“People are hysterical. My friends are crying. We don’t know what’s going on,” said one USAID official put on leave cited by CNN. For those posted abroad, losing their position may also mean uprooting their lives, impacting their spouses and children as well.
What is USAID?
Before we get further into the impacts of the global administrative leave on USAID employees, let’s cover what the agency is and its history.
It was created in 1961 by former President John F. Kennedy. He signed the Foreign Assistance Act into law and created USAID by executive order. Interestingly, Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is Trump’s nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services and the president has demanded that documents about President Kennedy’s assination be revealed.
Congress statutorily mandated USAID’s existence through the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 and it “routinely reinforces this status through authorization and appropriations legislation,” according to the Brookings Institution.
Over its more than 60-year history, USAID has evolved and at times shifted its focus. Initially it worked on capital and technical assistance programs, then on “basic human needs” in the 1970s, on stabilizing financial systems in the 1980s, sustainable development in the 1990s, helping Afghanistan and Iraq rebuild in the 2000s and more recently to end poverty and promote resilient democracies.
Today, it “is the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms,” and it stands as a hallmark of the U.S. around the world, according to the agency website. Through its aid the agency also plays a role in the promotion of U.S. foreign policy interests.
Why is the Trump administration putting USAID workers on leave?
Trump’s new administration has been looking to cut federal staff in an effort to reduce federal spending. Leading this effort is Elon Musk, the headline-making billionaire who Trump picked to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
It became clear this week that Musk has set his sights on USAID as a target for cuts. He called the agency a “criminal organization” and that it was “time for it to die,” in a Sunday post to his social media platform X.
ABC News noted that Musk has not cited any evidence to back up that claim.
“Look at all the fraud that he’s found in this USAID,” said Trump of Musk, per CNN. “It has to be corrupt,” he added. CNN also noted that Trump did not cite any evidence of corruption in the agency.
Employees who were part of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs were also placed on leave, and an estimated 20,000 federal staffers have also reportedly accepted buyout offers.
What’s been going on?
Per the memo up on the USAID website as of Wednesday, only certain designated USAID direct hire personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs will not be on administrative leave. Essential personnel who are expected to continue working will be informed by agency leadership by 3 p.m. ET Thursday, it said.
“For USAID personnel currently posted outside the United States, the Agency, in coordination with missions and the Department of State, is currently preparing a plan, in accordance with all applicable requirements and laws, under which the Agency would arrange and pay for return travel to the United States within 30 days and provide for the termination of PSC and ISC contracts that are not determined to be essential,” said the memo.
It added that the agency will consider case-by case exemptions based on personal or family hardship, mobility concerns, safety concerns and more.
According to CNN, thousands of personal services contractors and civil servants lost access to email and USAID systems overnight Monday. This created a significant amount of chaos and confusion. Also, the outlet said that the USAID headquarters and annex offices in the Washington, D.C., area will remain closed the remainder of the week, citing an email sent to staff Tuesday.
“In a whirlwind, the clamp down included the removal of USAID’s account from X and its website from the internet,” said an article from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
American Oversight, a non-partisan watchdog group, launched an investigation Tuesday into the USAID shutdown and filed 14 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
What does the future look like?
Brookings said that moves to abolish or reorganize USAID “raise serious questions of constitutional law.”
“Recent annual appropriations legislation also prohibits any reorganization of USAID without prior consultation with relevant congressional committees,” it said. “Ignoring these statutes would be tantamount to an extraordinarily broad claim of exclusive constitutional authority by the president over the structure of the executive branch,” and the actions could be invalidated if challenged in the federal courts, Brookings added.
On the ground, the loss of USAID personnel is concerning to experts. Its efforts “constitute soft power projection to compete against Russia’s and China’s anti-American posture and activities around the world,” Brookings explained.
“American support for systems of oversight, accountability, and sustainable economic and environmental decisions helps prevent China from entrapping countries in debt and diplomatic subservience and from monopolizing critical minerals or strategic access points, about which the Trump administration is so concerned with respect to the Panama Canal,” said expert Vanda Felbab Brown.
Experts also said the agency efforts help mitigate the spread of terrorism and the spread of global infectious diseases. Loss of employees could impact the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, other national security issues, global health and U.S. trade, to name a few things.
For example, Brookings said that millions of children’s lives are at risk worldwide without USAID. It also said a 2017 analysis found that 11 of the 15 largest trading partners of the U.S. were former recipients of aid.
“Hollowing out and then strangling the system into extinction through executive actions is akin to throwing away our toolbox or unilaterally disarming at a time of mounting geopolitical competition for partnerships globally,” said Noam Unger, director of the Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative at the CSIS. “It does not make us safer or well-positioned to influence the world for the better.”