The State Department’s USAID.gov web page has been re-visited, but the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency is shut down
It’s been a tumultuous weekend for USAID — the U.S. Agency for International Development. According to the internet archive, the website went down sometime after 3 a.m.
He wrote that it needed to die. AP reported that workers at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) were denied access to confidential documents at USAID on Saturday and that the Trump Administration subsequently put on leave the two USAID security officials who refused to grant access.
Online information about USAID, which is responsible for funding aid projects around the world and managed more than $40 billion in federal spending in 2023, is available at a new page that is part of the State Department’s website. The Internet Archive states that the page was captured for the first time in January.
There are seven items in this USAID section — a drastic reduction of the reports and information on the original USAID.gov website, which covered the wide range of the agency’s portfolio, from humanitarian assistance and global health to education and conflict prevention.
The first item appearing on the State web page is a press release.
President Trump temporarily halted foreign assistance in that order on the first day of his presidency, writing that foreign aid serves to “destabilize world peace.”
With doubts about the future of the aid agency, the move appears to be related to that.
The Case for a Dissolution of the United States Agency for Humanitarian Aid (USAID): The Impact of the Trump Administration and the Web Shutdown
“They have announced no plan and given no rationale — they’re just taking everything down,” Konyndyk said. He said that they don’t have to “defend what they’re doing” in public announcements because they’re trying to do it behind the scenes.
The consequences of a diminished or erased USAID would be dire, Konyndyk said, noting that one key component of its programs is keeping outbreaks and epidemics from reaching U.S. shores.
The web shutdown comes in the wake of both the stop work order and the furloughing or laying off of hundreds of USAID employees. Over 400 contractors in the agency’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance and hundreds more in the Global Health Bureau were laid off when the Trump administration placed senior leadership on leave in his first two weeks in office.
Democratic lawmakers in Congress are decrying these actions. The dissolution of USAID would be “illegal and against our national interests,” Sen. Chuck Schumer posted on Bluesky Friday evening.
The question of the legality of any attempt to change the status of USAID is connected to its origins. The agency was created in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order after Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act, which mandated the creation of an independent agency to focus on development separate from politics and the military. Congress established the agency as an independent agency in 1998.
Konyndyk stated that “it cannot just be undone by an executive order.” Congress will have to make a decision about dissolving the agency into the State Department.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has a long history of cooperation with non-military institutions, including Afghanistan and Pakistan
Created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, the U.S. Agency for International Development emerged from an effort to separate military and non-military assistance and revamp how the U.S. distributed foreign aid.
Kennedy said the US had a moral and financial obligation to give foreign aid. It was also politically advantageous to the U.S. to fund projects in poorer countries, he said, to try to prevent the collapse of “existing political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism.”
In 1971, at the height of the Vietnam War, the Senate rejected a foreign aid bill, in part over growing concerns that foreign assistance wasn’t helping U.S. interests abroad. Congress later refocused U.S. foreign aid efforts on projects designed to tackle specific issues, such as agriculture, family planning and education.
Still, in the decades since, some lawmakers and public officials have continued to question USAID’s effectiveness and accountability as an independent agency.
An archived post on USAID’s website, which vanished in recent days, said the agency responds to an average of 75 humanitarian crises each year, and has recently provided support during ongoing emergencies in Haiti as well as countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Climate change and food security are some of the issues that the agency has been working on. Experts have noted that a key component of USAID’s work is preventing disease outbreaks and epidemics from reaching the U.S.
The recent decision to freeze the agency’s activities is already having ramifications abroad. NPR reported that work has stopped on the reconstruction of 10 flood-damaged police stations in Pakistan, as well as a project that secretly provides education to girls in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
