U.S. President Donald Trump named Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, as acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development on Monday, saying the agency “has long strayed from its original mission of responsibly advancing American interests abroad, and it is now abundantly clear that significant portions of USAID funding are not aligned with the core national interests of the United States.”
“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out,” Trump told reporters about USAID after he deplaned at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, per the pool report.
Rubio notified Congress that a review is underway of USAID’s foreign assistance activities “with an eye towards potential reorganization,” according to the U.S. State Department.
“My frustration with USAID goes back to my time in Congress,” Rubio told reporters at Aeroman Headquarters in San Salvador, El Salvador, on Monday. “It’s a completely unresponsive agency. It’s supposed to respond to policy directives at the State Department and it refuses to do so.”
“There are a lot of functions of USAID that are going to continue, that are going to be part of American foreign policy, but it has to be aligned with American foreign policy,” Rubio added. “I’m very troubled by these reports that they have been unwilling to cooperate with people who are asking simple questions about what does this program do, who gets the money, who are our contractors, who’s funded.”
Rubio told reporters that he delegated authority, as acting director of USAID, “to someone, but I stay in touch with him.”
“USAID is not an independent nongovernmental entity. It is an entity that spends taxpayer dollars and it needs to spend it, as the statute says, in alignment with the policy directives that they get from the secretary of state, the National Security Council and the president,” he added. “It’s been 20 or 30 years where people have tried to reform it, and it refuses to reform, it refuses to cooperate. When we were in Congress we couldn’t even get answers to basic questions about programs. That will not continue.”
Asked if he agreed with Elon Musk’s characterization of USAID as a terror organization, Rubio told reporters: “I’ve articulated to you my challenges with it, and they go back to my time in Congress. We would ask them questions—who does this program fund, who gets the money—we won’t tell you, don’t need to tell you, we’re apolitical.” (It wasn’t immediately clear when Musk called the agency a terror group. He wrote on Feb. 2 that it is a “criminal organization.”)
“American foreign policy isn’t apolitical,” he added. “The attitude that USAID has adopted over the years is no, we are independent of the national interest, we fund programs irrespective of whether it’s aligned or not aligned with the foreign policy. That’s ridiculous. These are taxpayer dollars. Every penny that we spend in foreign aid needs to be in furtherance and aligned with the national interest and the national—and the foreign policy of the United States.”
Among the “waste and abuse” that “runs deep” at USAID, per a White House fact sheet, are “$1.5 million to ‘advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,’” “$6 million to fund tourism in Egypt,” “hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations—even after an inspector general launched an investigation” and “hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria.”
“The list literally goes on and on—and it has all been happening for decades,” the White House said.
“Trump is taking charge,” stated Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). “Love to see it.”
