Washington, Feb 3 (IANS) US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday kept the door open for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to stay in business or for its programmes to continue and not be shut down as said earlier in the day by Elon Musk.
Rubio did qualify that the agency needs to reform itself and align itself with the policies and priorities of the administration and the State Department and not operate independently of them.
“This is not about ending the programs that USAID does, per se,” Rubio told reporters in El Salvador.
“There are things that it does that are good, and there are things that it does that we have strong questions about. It’s about the way it operates as an entity. And they’re supposed to take direction from the State Department, policy direction. They do not, do not take policy direction. They’re completely uncooperative,” 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 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 in the national and the foreign policy of the U.S,” he said.
Elon Musk put the USAID’s fate in jeopardy early Monday in remarks as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “I went over it with him in detail, and he agreed that we should shut it down,” Musk said on X regarding his discussions with President Donald Trump about the agency.
“And I actually checked with him a few times [and] said ‘are you sure’?”
“The answer was yes,” he said. “And so we’re shutting it down.”
The USAID, which was founded in the 1960s, is an autonomous body of the State Department that is one of the world’s largest official aid agencies and accounts for more than half of US foreign assistance.
Musk also called the agency a “criminal”.
President Trump had not weighed in on Musk’s comments publicly yet but his allies have made clear the administration will pursue an American First path on every issue and Secretary of State Marco Rubio re-emphasised the importance of that principle in American diplomacy in his first public remarks at the state department upon taking charge.
On Saturday two top officials of the USAID were removed from office for blocking officials of the Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing rooms and floors at the USAID headquarters in Washington DC. DOGE officials had their way finally.
USAID workers at the headquarters were told in an email the agency will be closed on Monday. “Agency personnel normally assigned to work at USAID headquarters will work remotely … with the exception of personnel with essential on-site and building maintenance functions individually contacted by senior leadership,” they were told in an email.
The agency has had a long history of development work and partnerships in India, among many other countries. “In recent years, USAID established 34 public-private partnerships that leverage $380 million in additional financial resources,” said an archived webpage of the agency from 2021. The latest figures and extent of USAID work in India were not immediately available.
–IANS
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