USAID headquarters close amid DOGE scrutiny

Federal officials on Monday shut hundreds of employees out of the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Washington. The agency is listed on usa.gov as the foremost federal office for helping other countries trying to escape poverty, recover from disaster, or reform towards democracy.

The move came after Elon Musk earlier on Monday spoke against the agency during an audio chat on X.com. In leading the new Department of Government Efficiency, the tech billionaire is tasked with seeing where the federal government could make financial cuts. Musk reportedly said that President Donald Trump had agreed with him that the agency should be shut down. 

What were the other signs of them closing? As of Monday morning, the agency’s website and X account were shut down and a new account called Friends of USAID was launched to drum up support for the organization. The account called on USAID supporters to gather at the agency’s building on Monday afternoon to protest the shutdown. The Trump administration over the weekend put two leaders at the agency on leave. The two were reportedly placed on leave after refusing to grant Musk’s team access to internal systems.

Why is the administration targeting the agency? Musk has criticized the USAID, saying the agency has prioritized liberal causes with little oversight. He has claimed that the agency diverted funds to unnecessary causes. Meanwhile, other Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., have called for USAID and other foreign aid programs to end. Last month Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded through the agency in alignment with Trump’s executive order to reevaluate foreign aid.

What is the history of the agency? Congress in 1961 passed the Foreign Assistance Act that created USAID to oversee economic assistance programs. The agency provided humanitarian aid, disaster relief, vaccinations, and poverty assistance to communities around the world. The agency budgeted about $40 billion for fiscal year 2023, which accounted for less than 1% of the federal budget for that year.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard’s report on The World and Everything in It about why nine countries suspended funding to UNRWA last year.