President Donald Trump’s sweeping overhaul of the U.S. Agency for International Development has dismantled much of its workforce, terminated thousands of foreign assistance programs and transferred remaining operations to the State Department, raising questions about whether future administrations could restore the agency without major congressional action.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
WASHINGTON — More than a year after President Donald Trump began dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government’s former foreign aid apparatus remains substantially reduced, with thousands of canceled contracts, displaced employees and surviving programs transferred to the State Department. Although Congress has not formally abolished USAID, the administration’s restructuring has created institutional and financial obstacles that could make restoring the agency difficult for future presidents.
The changes represent a major shift in the federal government’s approach to overseas assistance, replacing the agency’s longstanding organizational structure with a smaller operation controlled more directly by the State Department. The administration has defended the overhaul as an effort to eliminate wasteful spending, strengthen accountability and redirect foreign assistance toward American national interests, while critics have questioned the legality of some actions and warned that the reductions have weakened humanitarian and development programs.
Mike Benz, a former USAID special government employee who assisted the Trump administration in examining the agency, said the consequences extend beyond the immediate termination of grants and employment positions. In an interview with Just the News examining the long-term effects of USAID’s restructuring, Benz argued that the uncertainty created by the administration’s actions could discourage experienced employees from returning even if a future administration attempts to rebuild the organization.
“Even if you turn the apparatus back on, there will be a slower ramp-up simply because I think the precarious nature of it, knowing it might be turned off again four years after that, makes a career at USAID inherently less attractive because of the political thin ice that it now sits on,” Benz said.
His assessment reflects a central consequence of the administration’s approach: Congress has not eliminated USAID’s underlying statutory status, but the termination of personnel, programs and contractual relationships has significantly reduced its ability to resume operations on the scale that existed before January 2025. Reestablishing that capacity would require more than restoring appropriations because foreign assistance programs depend on trained staff, overseas offices, contractors, local partners and administrative systems that may no longer be available.
Benz said the restructuring had also demonstrated that positions previously regarded as relatively secure within the federal foreign assistance system could be eliminated when an administration changes its priorities.
“There has been a kind of shock and awe message sent to the class of electioneers and subversive influence types, insofar as many of them had spent 10, 20, 30 years at USAID and had built their careers around that being a permanent position,” he added.
Benz’s characterization of former agency employees and contractors reflects his criticism of USAID’s activities rather than an established finding that the agency’s workforce was engaged in improper political interference. His comments nevertheless highlight the administration’s broader objective of changing the institutions, personnel and funding arrangements that shaped U.S. foreign assistance policy for decades.
The overhaul began on Jan. 20, 2025, when Trump signed Executive Order 14169, titled “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid”, shortly after returning to the White House. The order directed a 90-day pause in foreign development assistance while federal officials reviewed whether existing programs aligned with the administration’s foreign policy priorities.
The directive required agencies responsible for foreign assistance to examine their programs and determine whether they should be continued, modified or terminated. The administration argued that some overseas projects had advanced ideological objectives, supported organizations inconsistent with American interests or lacked adequate financial oversight.
The Department of Government Efficiency, initially associated with Elon Musk’s government restructuring initiative, participated in the review of USAID operations. DOGE personnel examined contracts, expenditures and administrative arrangements as administration officials moved to sharply reduce the agency’s workforce and overseas activities.
The process quickly expanded beyond the initial spending pause. Thousands of programs were identified for termination, and USAID personnel faced administrative leave, dismissals or reassignment as the White House and State Department reorganized the government’s foreign assistance responsibilities.
By March 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the administration had canceled approximately 5,200 USAID awards, representing roughly 83% of its programs worldwide. The remaining programs were subject to additional review as officials determined which activities would continue under the administration’s revised foreign assistance policy.
The figures are documented in a chronology of the USAID funding freeze and dissolution published by KFF, which tracks the administration’s executive actions, contract terminations, funding restrictions and transfer of responsibilities to the State Department.
The cancellation of 83% of awards did not necessarily represent an identical reduction in spending, since individual contracts and grants varied considerably in value. The measure nevertheless illustrated the scale of the restructuring, which affected programs involving humanitarian assistance, global health, food security, governance, education and economic development.
The administration subsequently established July 1, 2025, as the effective date for transferring USAID’s remaining foreign assistance responsibilities to the State Department. The transition effectively ended the agency’s previous role as the government’s principal independent foreign development organization, even though its statutory existence had not been formally terminated by Congress.
A July 2026 State Department inspector general evaluation of the transferred programs documented the scale of the responsibilities inherited by the department. The review found that 17 State Department bureaus and offices were administering 1,504 transferred foreign assistance programs and associated awards as of September 2025, with an obligated value of $51.5 billion and a total expected cost exceeding $86 billion.
Those figures show that the administration’s restructuring did not eliminate all U.S. foreign assistance. Instead, it terminated a large portion of the previous portfolio while transferring substantial remaining commitments to the State Department, where they were placed under a different administrative system.
The distinction matters because USAID’s operational dismantling and the formal abolition of the agency are separate legal questions. Federal foreign assistance has continued under other government authorities, even as the institution historically responsible for much of that work has lost its previous organizational capacity.
The White House has defended the changes by pointing to expenditures it considers wasteful, politically motivated or unrelated to American strategic interests. In a February 2025 statement detailing what it described as waste and abuse at USAID, the administration identified projects involving diversity initiatives, gender-related programs, research organizations and assistance distributed in conflict zones.
Among the expenditures cited were $1.5 million for workplace diversity initiatives in Serbia and approximately $2 million for gender-related and LGBTQ programs in Guatemala. The administration also criticized funding associated with EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization that previously supported research involving the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
EcoHealth Alliance became the subject of substantial congressional scrutiny following investigations into federally funded research involving coronaviruses and questions about oversight of its international research partnerships. Administration officials included its funding relationships among the examples they used to argue that foreign assistance expenditures had not received sufficient supervision.
The White House also cited allegations that food assistance intended for civilians in Syria had reached fighters affiliated with al-Qaeda. Diversion of humanitarian assistance to armed groups has been a longstanding concern in conflict zones, where aid organizations may operate amid unstable security conditions and limited access to reliable local partners.
Such allegations require distinctions between documented fraud, weaknesses in oversight, disputed program objectives and instances in which funding may have been diverted despite existing safeguards. The administration presented the examples as justification for its broad restructuring, but the existence of questionable or poorly monitored expenditures does not establish that every terminated program involved wrongdoing.
The White House subsequently pursued additional spending reductions through congressional rescissions and other budgetary mechanisms. In August 2025, it announced a pocket rescission package targeting foreign assistance and other expenditures, describing the targeted funding as support for climate initiatives, diversity programs and activities it considered inconsistent with taxpayers’ interests.
The maneuver added to earlier efforts to withdraw funding from programs the administration no longer supported. Rescissions differ from ordinary agency management decisions because they involve canceling budget authority previously provided by Congress, an area governed by federal spending laws and constitutional divisions of power.
The administration’s efforts to reduce USAID spending followed years of criticism from lawmakers and government oversight bodies concerning the cost, effectiveness and accountability of overseas assistance.
Previous audits had identified weaknesses involving contractor expenses, monitoring procedures, program management and the risks of distributing assistance in areas controlled or influenced by armed organizations. Those problems existed before Trump’s second administration and contributed to recurring debates over whether the federal government adequately verified how foreign assistance money was spent.
One prominent example involved reconstruction spending in Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion in 2001. Over two decades, the United States financed projects involving infrastructure, security forces, education, agriculture and government institutions, many of which became subjects of criticism after the withdrawal of American forces in 2021.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction documented extensive waste, fraud and abuse involving federally funded reconstruction activities. A review of the inspector general’s final accounting described estimates of approximately $26 billion to $29 billion in waste, fraud and abuse across the reconstruction effort.
The documented problems included failed infrastructure projects, unsuccessful agricultural initiatives, weaknesses in contracting and programs that did not achieve their intended results. Opium-eradication efforts were among the activities criticized for their costs and limited effectiveness.
However, the Afghanistan reconstruction figures concern a broad federal undertaking involving multiple agencies, including the Defense and State departments, rather than expenditures attributable exclusively to USAID. They therefore provide evidence of systemic foreign assistance and reconstruction oversight problems but should not be treated as a direct accounting of waste within USAID alone.
Concerns about potential aid diversion also emerged during the Biden administration. In October 2024, Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas questioned whether American humanitarian funding for Gaza was adequately protected against misuse by terrorist organizations.
In a letter to then-USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Cotton warned about the “likely misuse of more than one billion dollars” in humanitarian assistance and cited findings concerning weaknesses in oversight and partner screening.
The senator called for greater scrutiny of the assistance and urged the agency to suspend funding until it could demonstrate that American resources were not benefiting terrorist organizations.
Cotton’s warning reflected concerns about the difficulty of distributing humanitarian aid in areas where armed groups exercise significant control. It did not establish that the entire amount in question had been diverted to terrorist organizations, but it raised questions about the safeguards used to monitor recipients and prevent misuse.
Congressional oversight of humanitarian operations frequently involves balancing the need to deliver food, medical supplies and other assistance to civilians against the danger that resources may be intercepted or redirected by armed groups.
That challenge is especially pronounced in conflict zones where aid organizations may depend on local intermediaries and where independent verification can be difficult.
USAID’s own inspector general had also identified weaknesses in the agency’s management of contractor and grantee overhead expenses. Those findings are particularly relevant because a substantial portion of U.S. foreign assistance has historically been delivered through private contractors, nonprofit organizations and other implementing partners.
A January 2024 audit of negotiated indirect cost rate agreements examined how the agency managed expenses charged by contractors and grantees between fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2021.
Indirect costs generally include administrative expenditures such as office space, utilities, salaries and other expenses that support an organization’s operations but cannot be assigned directly to one particular project.
The inspector general found that weaknesses in USAID’s information systems prevented auditors from obtaining a complete list of contractors and grantees necessary to evaluate the agency’s management of those costs comprehensively.
Auditors also identified shortcomings involving monitoring of indirect cost calculations by subcontractors and documentation supporting charges submitted to the government. The report recommended changes to data collection, oversight procedures and recordkeeping practices.
Those findings demonstrated deficiencies in the agency’s financial management systems, although they did not establish that every indirect cost was improper or that all contractors had overcharged the government.
The distinction is significant because administrative expenses can be legitimate components of delivering foreign assistance, particularly when organizations must maintain specialized personnel, transportation, security and logistical capabilities in difficult operating environments.
The audit found that USAID lacked sufficient information and controls to reliably assess certain costs, creating opportunities for errors and potential misuse. Such findings provided a basis for calls to strengthen financial oversight, regardless of whether policymakers supported preserving or abolishing the agency.
Trump’s administration chose a much broader institutional response, combining spending reviews with extensive reductions in personnel, contract cancellations and the transfer of remaining functions.
For supporters of the restructuring, the results demonstrate that a presidential administration can substantially change how the federal government administers foreign assistance without waiting for Congress to pass a comprehensive agency abolition statute.
For opponents, the same actions raise questions about the limits of executive authority and whether a president may effectively disable an institution whose responsibilities and funding have been established through legislation.
USAID’s legal history is central to that dispute.
President John F. Kennedy established the agency in 1961 as part of a broader reorganization of U.S. foreign assistance programs during the Cold War. The agency was intended to consolidate international development activities and use economic and humanitarian assistance as instruments of American foreign policy.
Over subsequent decades, USAID expanded its activities in areas including disease prevention, food security, education, disaster relief and economic development. Its programs operated through relationships with foreign governments, international organizations, nonprofit groups and private contractors.
Congress subsequently strengthened the agency’s legal status through legislation. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998 recognized USAID as an independent establishment within the executive branch, subject to the foreign policy authority and coordination responsibilities of the secretary of state.
That statutory foundation complicates efforts to abolish USAID solely through executive action. Although the president has substantial authority to direct foreign policy and manage executive agencies, Congress retains legislative and appropriations powers concerning federal institutions and spending.
Formal abolition would ordinarily require Congress to amend or repeal the laws establishing the agency’s functions and organizational status. Lawmakers could also consider legislation transferring its authorities to another department and addressing the disposition of personnel, assets and outstanding commitments.
One legislative proposal seeking that outcome is H.R. 1029, introduced in the 119th Congress. The measure would prohibit funding for USAID’s activities and functions while establishing arrangements to transfer its assets and responsibilities to the State Department.
The bill represents a statutory route to accomplishing the institutional changes that the Trump administration has already pursued administratively. Passage would provide congressional authorization for the elimination of USAID as a separate organization, rather than leaving its diminished operational status dependent primarily on executive decisions.
Congress also possesses the power to influence the agency through annual appropriations. Lawmakers could reduce or eliminate funding for particular accounts, impose restrictions on the use of money or direct the State Department to administer specified foreign assistance programs.
Another mechanism is rescission, through which previously enacted budget authority can be canceled under applicable federal procedures.
The Rescissions Act of 2025 eliminated billions of dollars in previously approved federal spending, including foreign assistance funds, demonstrating how congressional action can reinforce an administration’s efforts to reduce expenditures.
These legislative mechanisms could make portions of the restructuring more durable by embedding spending reductions or organizational changes in federal law.
Without such legislation, a future president could seek to restore terminated programs, rebuild staffing and reverse administrative decisions within the limits of existing statutes and congressional appropriations.
However, restoring legal authority or funding would not automatically recreate the institutional capacity that existed before the overhaul.
Many USAID programs depended on long-term relationships with overseas organizations, local employees, specialized contractors and international institutions. When grants are terminated and personnel leave, those relationships can deteriorate or disappear.
A future administration seeking to restart the programs could face the task of negotiating new agreements, identifying qualified partners and rebuilding systems for financial oversight, procurement and field operations.
The interruption of contracts can also affect organizations that previously depended on American foreign assistance as a substantial portion of their funding. Some may have reduced operations, dismissed employees or closed altogether after losing grants.
Those developments could limit the number of experienced organizations available to participate in restored programs, particularly in countries where humanitarian and development work requires specialized local knowledge.
The rebuilding process would also depend on the willingness of former employees to return to government service.
Benz’s comments addressed that issue directly. He argued that the experience of sudden contract cancellations, dismissals and organizational restructuring could make a career in foreign assistance appear substantially less stable than it did before the administration’s actions.
An employee considering a return to USAID might have to weigh the possibility that another administration could again reduce or eliminate the agency’s functions within a relatively short period.
That uncertainty could be particularly significant for professionals with specialized expertise in public health, agriculture, conflict-zone logistics, procurement and international development.
At the same time, the State Department’s assumption of substantial foreign assistance responsibilities means that rebuilding some programs would not necessarily require recreating the previous USAID structure.
Congress and a future administration could choose to maintain a State Department-led model while expanding funding and staffing. Alternatively, lawmakers could restore USAID’s operational independence or establish a different institutional arrangement.
Each approach would involve decisions about accountability, congressional oversight, foreign policy coordination and the relationship between diplomatic priorities and long-term development work.
The State Department’s management of the transferred programs may therefore influence future debates about whether an independent foreign aid agency is necessary.
Supporters of consolidation argue that placing foreign assistance more directly under the secretary of state can improve coordination with American diplomatic objectives and reduce overlapping administrative structures.
Critics maintain that development and humanitarian assistance often require specialized technical expertise and continuity across changing presidential administrations, qualities they argue can be weakened when programs are closely tied to short-term foreign policy decisions.
The two positions reflect a longstanding debate over the purpose of foreign assistance.
For some policymakers, overseas aid is primarily a tool for advancing American strategic interests, strengthening alliances and preventing instability that could affect the United States.
Others emphasize its humanitarian and development functions, including disease prevention, emergency food assistance, economic growth and the improvement of public institutions in lower-income countries.
In practice, USAID historically pursued objectives spanning both approaches. Its programs were established within the framework of American foreign policy while also supporting humanitarian and development activities that could extend across multiple administrations.
The Trump administration’s restructuring places greater emphasis on determining whether individual expenditures serve clearly identified national interests and whether the government can verify how funds are used.
Its critics have argued that the speed and breadth of the cuts may have terminated useful programs alongside those that deserved additional scrutiny.
The consequences are already being examined in international health and humanitarian operations. An October 2026 Reuters investigation into the U.S. response to an Ebola outbreak in Congo described how reductions in American international health engagement complicated response efforts and placed additional burdens on medical personnel.
Such developments demonstrate that the restructuring’s effects extend beyond the administrative organization of the federal government and may influence the United States’ ability to respond to emergencies overseas.
They also highlight why the costs and benefits of the overhaul remain contested. Financial savings from canceled programs must be considered alongside any loss of operational capability, while allegations of waste require evaluation against documented evidence rather than broad political characterizations.
By October 2026, however, the institutional transformation of USAID is no longer merely a proposal. The administration has canceled most of the agency’s previous program portfolio, transferred surviving responsibilities to the State Department and removed much of the workforce that administered U.S. foreign assistance before Trump’s return to office.
Congress has not completed the separate legal process of abolishing USAID, leaving unresolved questions about the agency’s statutory status and what a future administration could restore.
The durability of the changes will depend in part on whether lawmakers enact additional legislation, how the State Department manages the transferred programs and whether future administrations choose to rebuild a separate foreign assistance organization.
Benz argues that the administration has already achieved a lasting result by disrupting the employment, contracting and institutional relationships on which USAID depended.
His assessment remains a prediction about the agency’s future rather than a legal determination that restoration is impossible.
What is established is that reinstating the former USAID would require rebuilding far more than a budget. A future administration would need to restore personnel, overseas partnerships, operational systems and institutional capacity after one of the most extensive reorganizations of American foreign assistance in the agency’s history.
For now, Trump’s administration has accomplished much of the practical dismantling sought by longtime critics of USAID, even as the unresolved question of formal abolition remains with Congress.
Original article
Comments