The United States has dramatically cut the budgets of overseas development and aid programmes, with multi-year contracts pared down by 92 per cent, or $54 billion, the State Department said Wednesday.
On his first day in office, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding a freeze on all US foreign aid for 90 days. The pause aimed to allow the administration to review overseas spending with an eye to gutting programmes not aligned with Trump’s “America First” agenda.
The review in part targeted multi-year foreign assistance contracts awarded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with the vast majority eliminated during its course.
“At the conclusion of a process led by USAID leadership, including tranches personally reviewed by Secretary (Marco) Rubio, nearly 5,800 awards with $54bn in value remaining were identified for elimination as part of the America First agenda — a 92pc reduction,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.
The review also looked at more than 9,100 grants involving foreign assistance, valued at more than $15.9bn.
At the conclusion of the review, 4,100 grants worth almost $4.4bn were targeted to be eliminated, a 28pc reduction.
“These commonsense eliminations will allow the bureaus, along with their contracting and grants officers, to focus on remaining programs, find additional efficiencies and tailor subsequent programs more closely to the Administration’s America First priorities,” the State Department statement said.
Programs that were not cut included food assistance, life-saving medical treatments for diseases like HIV and malaria and support for countries including Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela and Lebanon, among others, the spokesperson said.
On Tuesday, a federal judge gave the Trump administration less than two days to unfreeze all aid, after a previous court order issued nearly two weeks earlier went ignored.
The Trump administration filed a petition to put a hold on the lower court order, which was granted by US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts late Wednesday, according to US media reports.
USAID, created after a bill passed by Congress in 1961, had a workforce of more than 10,000 employees prior to the freeze, which sparked shock and dismay among personnel.
The agency announced on February 23 that it was laying off 1,600 of its employees in the United States and placing most of the remaining staff on administrative leave.
During his election campaign, Trump promised to slash federal government spending and bureaucracy, a task he bestowed upon his top donor and close advisor, billionaire Elon Musk, as part of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
US federal workers push back on Musk cuts
The few dozen demonstrators strode through the US Senate halls, taking their angry message door to door — part of growing grassroots protests against sweeping cuts to the government workforce led by billionaire Elon Musk.
Trailed by security personnel warning them not to block the busy halls, the federal workers filed into the offices of multiple Republican senators, including majority leader John Thune, to voice their distress.
“The goal is to make ourselves heard,” said Steve, 33, who like many federal workers and contractors unsure about their futures, asked not to use his whole name for fear of reprisal.
“We brought up examples of how people are directly impacted by the dismantling of agencies,” Steve said.
“Everybody is feeling the pain,” Steve said. Some of the senators seemed “receptive” at first, but when asked what they’d do to help, “it’s crickets”.
Trump’s shock-and-awe approach, backed by an avalanche of executive orders seeking to put his hard-right stamp on every facet of government, has not seen anything like the kind of mass public protests seen at the start of his first term in 2017.
But resistance is emerging among current and former federal worker, who are responding with demonstrations, media campaigns, high-profile resignations and lawsuits.
“It’s very grassroots,” said Vera Zlidar, a furloughed contractor for the USAID agency, which has been gutted in Musk’s campaign.
“The work that we do touches so many facets of people’s lives,” she said.
Social media pages, message boards and websites have proliferated with thousands of followers, aimed at mobilising resistance, as well as sharing how the cuts will impact everyday Americans.
The Senate protests vary in size but have turned into a daily event.
“We have to save ourselves,” said one federal worker and protest organiser, again asking not to be identified.
Resignations
Some federal workers have protested by resigning.
This week, roughly a third of technology staffers at Musk’s so-called DOGE quit, saying that they would not work in a way that puts the country at risk.
Before the approximately 20 staffers left DOGE, federal employees had created a website called “We Are the Builders” to share stories of the impact of DOGE actions, arguing that it was crippling agencies’ abilities to provide crucial services.
Part of the group’s logo is a spoon — a symbol now used by federal workers to protest Musk’s cuts, referencing an email from the tech entrepreneur’s team titled “Fork in the Road”, in which government employees were given an offer to leave with eight months’ pay or risk being fired in future.
US media reported instances of federal workers flooding work message groups with spoon emojis to troll Musk lieutenants or adding the cutlery symbol to their work online profiles.
Dozens of lawsuits have also sprouted against Musk’s threats or demands, with mixed results.
The largest federal employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), has vowed to challenge and unlawful terminations, calling Musk “unhinged”.
‘Superpower’
Republican congress members, who control both the House and the Senate, are unanimously loyal to Trump. However, tension over Musk’s rampage is growing in areas of the party.
And a February Washington Post-Ipsos poll showed dislike of Musk’s approach to shrinking the federal work force.
But Musk and the White House have been unmoved.
The richest person on Earth has posted a slew of messages on his X platform disparaging federal works and sharing polls by his own America PAC — a political action committee he founded to support Trump — saying DOGE “is one of the most popular parts” of the president’s agenda.
The protester organiser said pressure is bound to grow as more agencies come under Musk’s knife and thousands of out-of-work civil servants find themselves ejected.
“Free time is their superpower,” the organiser said.
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