The Trump administration cut the US Agency for International Development’s workforce to the bone Thursday, reducing the embattled agency’s global staff from 10,000 people down to less than 300.
The massive reduction, reported by the New York Times and Reuters, comes one day after USAID announced on its website that it would recall all foreign-based personnel and place all staffers except those deemed responsible for “mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs” on administrative leave by late Friday night.
USAID, which the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has targeted as a prime example of taxpayer-funded waste, will only retain a combined 294 staffers in Washington and its worldwide outposts, including 12 employees in its Africa bureau and eight in its Asia bureau, according to Reuters.
The small group of remaining employees includes individuals who specialize in health and humanitarian assistance, according to the New York Times.
USAID officials were also informed Thursday that roughly 800 awards and contracts administered through the agency were being terminated, the outlet reported.
The Trump administration hopes to merge the trimmed-down agency with the State Department.
To that effect, on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was named acting director of USAID.
The State Department did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Two-thirds of USAID’s 10,000 employees worked outside the US, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
The agency, created by former President John F. Kennedy via executive order in 1961, is the federal government’s primary humanitarian and foreign aid authority.
USAID had a $43.4 billion budget in fiscal year 2023 and spent most of its funds on foreign governance assistance ($16.8 billion), followed by humanitarian aid ($10.5 billion), health care initiatives ($7 billion), administrative efforts ($3.5 billion) and agriculture, education and infrastructure projects ($3.1 billion), according to CRS.
President Trump ordered a 90-day pause on US foreign development assistance on the first day of his second term.
On Sunday night, the president charged that USAID had “been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out.”
Meanwhile, Musk later said during an X Spaces event that Trump had “agreed” with him that DOGE “should shut it down.”
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO further argued that the agency was “beyond repair.”
The staff reduction at USAID came on the same day the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed that it put 168 employees on leave in order to comply with Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion and other presidential directives.
“Career staff made determinations on which Office of Environmental Justice employees had statutory duties or core mission functions. As such, 168 staffers were placed on administrative leave as their function did not relate to the agency’s statutory duties or grant work,” an EPA spokesperson told The Post.
“EPA is in the process of evaluating new structure and organization to ensure we are meeting our mission of protecting human health and the environment for all Americans,” the official added.
