Update: On February 10, a federal judge paused parts of the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down USAID, including putting thousands of staff on administration leave and recalling those who work abroad.
On February 14, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to lift a funding freeze on USAID payments by February 26 at 11:59PM. On February 26, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts paused the deadline for payments, effectively continuing the funding freeze.
On March 5, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must release billions of frozen USAID payments to contractors, but did not give a deadline for when the payments need to be released.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk and a team of his followers, entered the offices of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), shuttering much of the agency and its functions. They’ve sent home a majority of the Washington D.C.-based staff on administrative leave, ordered that staff located abroad travel back to the United States, and altogether roughly 10,000 staffers from around the globe are to be placed on leave. There are serious questions about the legality of this maneuver, given that the agency was created by Congress.
Musk has recently said that President Trump has agreed to shut down USAID, and called the agency a “criminal organization” and that it was “time for it to die,” and that he “spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” On February 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled plans to restructure and potentially abolish USAID, and noted that “In consultation with Congress, USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus, and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law.”
Impact: USAID is a federal agency that was started during President Kennedy’s administration, to manage the U.S.’s foreign assistance and manage numerous projects abroad that seek to “end extreme poverty, and promote resilient democratic societies…by partnering with individuals and citizens around the world.” USAID distributes the vast majority of the foreign aid that Congress authorizes, and all of the agency’s disbursements were paused as part of the January 20, 2025 Executive Order, “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid.” The agency funds projects in a number of areas such as agriculture, human rights, health initiatives, and others. Some of the programs and funding support workers around the world through initiatives to improve labor standards, increase access to justice for workers, and promote gender equality and migrant worker rights, for example.