Key Points on USAID

February 5, 2025

The Latest

• Last night, the entire USAID direct hire workforce globally was notified that they are now on administrative leave indefinitely, and all “non-essential” Institutional Support and Personal Service Contractors–approximately 3,000 people–were “terminated.”

• USAID has more than 13,000 total employees worldwide, including direct hires (foreign and civil service), locally employed foreign service national staff, and contractors. This includes:

  • More than 1,900 Foreign Service Officers (FSOs), who will now need to return home with their families

  • More than 1,600 civil service employees, who have all been placed on administrative leave

  • More than 5,000 locally employed foreign service national staff, who will now be out of work as Missions shutter

  • More than 3,000 Institutional Support Contractors (ISCs), most of whom were already furloughed, and now officially laid off

  • More than 1,100 Personal Services Contractors (PSCs), who have had their contracts canceled and are now out of work

• USAID staff overseas were told to return to Washington within 30 days. This directive will uproot thousands of families at enormous cost to the taxpayer.

  • Their children will be abruptly pulled out of school.

  • Many USAID staff do not have homes to come back to in the United States. They could effectively be homeless upon their return, required to rely upon family and friends for housing.

  • USAID Missions are losing services such as cell phones and internet access because they cannot pay bills with the payment systems frozen, and making travel arrangements for the entire foreign service officer corps and their families to return home will be severely hindered as a result.

  • Some of these USAID workers are in active war zones, like Ukraine, and have lost access to secure communications.

• This forced repatriation of USAID staff will halt all humanitarian and development programs, including lifesaving activities like PEPFAR and critical assistance approved under Secretary Rubio’s waiver, issued on January, 28, 2025. Oversight of these programs funded by American taxpayers will also come to a halt.

Current Impact

Humanitarian Assistance

• In Somalia, with the purging of USAID staff, there is more than $400 million in USAID humanitarian funding that now lacks appropriate oversight, including for emergency food aid that is reaching over one million hungry people each month.●

• Title II emergency food and nutrition assistance is currently suspended, and constitutes the bulk of USAID's food assistance. This suspension will not only drive more people into famine conditions, but will also impact the American farmers who grow the food, as well as the U.S. ocean freighters that ship these commodities around the world.

  • At this time, it is estimated that over 500,000 metric tons (MT) of American farmers’ food commodities valued at more than $340 million are stranded at U.S. ports due to the stop work order. This includes:

  • In addition, 180,126 MT of planned purchases from American farmers have been halted entirely. Beyond this, a substantial quantity of American food commodities are being loaded at ports like Houston, TX, and other locations across the United States domestic supply chain, with figures on impact still being assessed.

  • Senator Moran (R-KS) is right: This aid must be distributed immediately. The scale of this disruption underscores the far-reaching consequences of the funding pause on global food assistance efforts.

• In Bangladesh, food assistance for one million refugees is at a critical point, with full rations running out at the end of this month and a reduction of 50% for rations in March. By April, food assistance is likely to shut down if the freeze continues. That’s mothers, fathers, and young children without food to thrive.

• In South Sudan, there is approximately $200 million in emergency food aid (Title II) and $100 million in Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funding on the way or sitting in Mombasa, Kenya, to feed an estimated five million people where 60 percent of the population is extremely food insecure. One in four children under five is suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

  
  

Health

• Cases of Ebola in Uganda are no longer being contained by American foreign aid and technical expertise. This disease can quickly spread to become another pandemic if USAID is not present. USAID was responsible for containing the 2013-2015 Ebola outbreak, preventing a global pandemic from occurring, and saving millions of lives.

• The freeze on USAID’s global health programs will shut down malaria spraying in multiple countries leaving close to 6 million people vulnerable to this disease.

• Bird flu, which has already killed an American in Louisiana, is no longer being monitored in 49 countries as a result of the stop work order. Without USAID, efforts to prevent this virus from mutating into a more dangerous strain will be significantly weakened.

• Without USAID’s health and nutrition assistance, approximately 4.5 million children under the age of five are facing acute malnutrition in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country facing growing conflict and instability.

National Security

• USAID should be reformed to better align with an America First foreign policy agenda and adapt to a new era of strategic competition, but Elon Musk and Peter Marocco’s actions are not doing this, they are robbing the United States of a critical soft power tool. Because many of those actions are sloppy, they are likely to end up costing U.S. taxpayers much more than an orderly reform process.

• In the absence of USAID leadership, vulnerable people will turn to others for help, not only China and Russia, but potentially violent extremist organizations.

Countering China’s Influence

• Competition and conflict with China will increasingly play out in the economic sphere, and USAID has the diverse toolkit necessary to counter China in this sphere.

• To help counter China, USAID relies on a range of technical experts and its strong relationships within partner governments across the globe. Elon Musk’s actions are destroying this critical expertise and these important relationships, providing a favor to his friends in the Chinese Communist Party.

  • USAID provides technical assistance to help partner governments reduce their vulnerability to Chinese debt exploitation: helping Ecuador qualify for concessional financing as alternative to Chinese debt; helping Burma set up a process to better vet projects under the Chinese-Burma Economic Corridor

  • USAID works with the private sector to mobilize alternatives to dangerous Chinese technology: USAID is working with local partners to expand Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) in the Philippines, which provides the best alternative to Huawei

  • USAID counters Chinese monopolization of critical resources and instead helps strengthen U.S. access to critical supply chains: USAID is working with ASEAN and African countries to strengthen safeguards in the critical minerals sector that make it more difficult for China to exploit the markets and create a better investment environment for US businesses.

• In addition to countering China, USAID can help stem threats like migration and terrorism at their source, providing a cost-effective tool for making America safer.

• Of great concern to American businesses and citizens is the breach of classified, personally identifiable information (PII) and other sensitive systems and data by DOGE actors whose clearance levels and intent remain unclear. Taken in the broad context of DOGE behavior in other federal agencies, the scale of information insecurity represents exceptional risk to US national security and to our partners around the world.

American Jobs

• Implementing partners, which include NGOs and development companies based across the United States - Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia and Washington, - will be facing mass furloughs or layoffs, and some may even have to close their doors entirely in the coming days and weeks.

• This will impact a total of 52,000 American jobs, with 8,850 American jobs already lost.

American Democracy

• Congress has lost control of the power of the purse and oversight of USAID through the actions of Elon Musk, DOGE, and the White House.

• USAID was founded by an executive order (EO) but was codified in statute by Congress and only Congress has the power to approve the modification/merger of USAID or its closure. This cannot be done unilaterally by the Executive Branch.