Massive Shake-Up at USAID: Trump Administration Cuts Workforce by 2,000
- Trump
Jakarta, VoxPop – The Trump administration on Sunday said it was placing all but a handful of USAID personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, according to a notice sent to agency workers and posted online.
“As of 11:59 p.m. local time, on Sunday (Feb 23), all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” the notice said.
“Concurrently”, the notice added, the agency is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force affecting about 2,000 USAID personnel in the US. The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Billionaire Elon Musk has boasted that he is feeding USAID into the wood chipper as his so-called “department of government efficiency” has led an effort to gut the main delivery mechanism for American foreign assistance, a critical tool of US “soft power” for winning influence abroad.
On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAid workers on leave, a setback for government employee unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle it.
The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was appointed acting USAid administrator by Donald Trump earlier this month. The unsigned notice came from “the office of the administrator”.
Two former senior USAID officials told Reuters that a majority of some 4,600 agency personnel, career US Civil Service and Foreign Service staffers, would be placed on administrative leave.
“This administration and Secretary Rubio are shortsighted in cutting into the expertise and unique crisis response capacity of the US”, said Marcia Wong, one of the former officials.
“When disease outbreaks occur, populations displaced, these USAID experts are on the ground and first deployed to help stabilize and provide aid?” In a post on Musk’s social media platform, Wong was even more blunt, calling the job cuts a shortsighted, high risk and frankly stupid act.
