The US Agency for International Development‘s Website Goes Down: The Trump Administration’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid
The US Agency for International Development has been in turmoil over the weekend. On Saturday sometime after 3 a.m., its website went down, according to the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that tracks web pages.
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.
In the 2023 fiscal year, USAID managed a roughly $40 billion budget. (That represents less than 1% of the total federal budget of $6.1 trillion the same year.) It provided aid to about 130 countries that year.
There are seven items that make up this section of the agency’s website, which was reduced to give a more concise overview of the wide range of the agency’s portfolio.
The first item that appears on the State web page is a press release: “Implementing the President’s Executive Order on Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid.”
President Trump temporarily halted foreign assistance in that order on the first day of his presidency because he felt it served to “destabilize world peace.”
With concerns about the fate of the aid agency and the possibility of it being folded into the State Department, the move appears as a sign of things to come.
The Donald Trump Administration and the status of the United States Department of Interior and External Affairs (USAID): Commentary on Konyndyk’s frustrations
“They have announced no plan and given no rationale — they’re just taking everything down,” Konyndyk said. He said that they don’t want to “defend” what they’re doing in public announcements.
Konyndyk said that the effects of a diminished or erased USAID would be dire, and that one component of its programs was preventing epidemics from reaching US 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. In the first two weeks of his presidency, the Trump Administration laid off hundreds of employees in the Global Health Bureau and placed senior leaders at the US Agency for International Development on leave, as well as laying off more than 400 contractors in the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance.
Democratic lawmakers in Congress are angry with the actions being taken. 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 Foreign Assistance Act of 1962 led to the creation of the agency, which was mandated to focus on development and not politics. Congress established the agency as an independent agency in 1998.
That means “it cannot just be undone, at this point, by an executive order,” Konyndyk said. Congress will have to act to make the agency part of the State Department.
The Failure of USAID, a Non-Minimal Agency for International Development, and its Implications for the Future of the United States
President John F. Kennedy created the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1961, after he separated military and non-military assistance.
Kennedy believed that the US had a moral and financial obligation to provide foreign aid because it was the wealthiest country on Earth. He said that it was politically beneficial to fund projects in poorer countries to prevent the collapse of political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of communism.
The foreign aid bill was rejected by the Senate in 1971 due to growing concerns that foreign assistance was not helping U.S. interests abroad. The Congress refocused US foreign aid efforts on projects that dealt with certain 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 old post on the website said the agency responds to an average of 75 humanitarian crises a year, and has recently provided support during ongoing emergencies in Haiti and countries in Africa.
Other issues the agency has been working on include food security, climate change and global health. 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 and a project that secretly provides education to girls in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan could shut down.