Former President Barack Obama lamented the shuttering of USAID in video conference this week. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
USAID is an independent U.S. agency that was established under the Kennedy administration to administer economic aid to foreign nations. It was one of the first agencies investigated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in early February for alleged mismanagement and government overspending, with DOGE's then-leader Elon Musk slamming the agency as "a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America."
USAID officially was absorbed by the State Department Tuesday.
Bush, who overwhelmingly has shied away from publicly criticizing Trump, lamented in his recorded message to the staffers that the end of USAID marks an end to his administration's work rolling out an AIDS and HIV program that is credited with saving 25 million people nationwide.
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Former President Barack Obama steered clear of openly criticizing President Donald Trump directly following his inauguration. (Ben Curtis/The Associated Press)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was serving as acting administrator of USAID, announced the State Department absorbed USAID's foreign assistance programs Tuesday after decades of failing to ensure the programs it funded actually supported America's interests.
"Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War," Rubio wrote in his announcement. "Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown."
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"This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end," he continued. "Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency."
The shuttering comes after the Department of Government Efficiency gutted USAID as part of President Donald Trump's effort to remove waste, fraud and abuse from the federal government earlier in 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The shuttering comes after DOGE gutted USAID as part of Trump's effort to remove waste, fraud and abuse from the federal government earlier in 2025.
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Trump repeatedly had touted DOGE's work uncovering fraud and mismanagement within the federal government, including in his March address before Congress celebrating that DOGE identified $22 billion in government "waste," including at USAID.
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"Forty-five million dollars for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma," Trump said as he rattled off various examples of federal waste. "Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is. Eight million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of. Sixty million dollars for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America. Sixty million. Eight million for making mice transgender."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bush-teams-up-notorious-trump-foes-trash-colossal-mistake-shuttering-usaid