President Donald Trump’s administration said it placed all personnel at the foreign assistance agency USAID, except leaders and critical staff, on paid administrative leave and eliminated 1,600 positions in the United States.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has led an effort to gut the US Agency for International Development, the main delivery mechanism for American foreign assistance and a critical tool of US “soft power” for winning influence abroad.
USAID said on its website that all direct hires except essential workers will be put on leave, and 1,600 USAID personnel in the US will be cut.
On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAID workers on leave, a setback for government employee unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle it.
Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on January 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe.
The administration has approved exceptions to the freeze totaling $5.3 billion, mostly for security and counter-narcotics programs, according to a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters that included limited humanitarian relief.
USAID programs got less than $100 million in exemptions, compared to roughly $40 billion in programs it administered annually before the freeze.
