WASHINGTON – U.S. aid workers around the world scrambled Wednesday to pack up households or take children out of school under a sudden Trump administration order that pulled almost all of them off the job and out of the field.
The order all but shut down the six-decade mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government's primary agency for delivering humanitarian aid to other countries.
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In Washington, Democratic lawmakers and several hundred supporters of the agency rallied outside the Capitol to protest the dismantling of the independent government organization that seeks to help people affected by wars, disasters, disease and poverty.
“We are witnessing in real time the most corrupt bargain in American history," Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen shouted to supporters at the rally, referring to billionaire Elon Musk, his support for President Donald Trump and his role in challenging USAID and other targeted agencies.
“Lock him up!" members of the crowd chanted. They expressed frustration as well at Democratic lawmakers, who promised court battles and other efforts to stop the attacks on federal agencies and programs. “Do your job!”
USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new administration and Musk’s budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda.
U.S. embassies in many of the more than 100 countries where USAID operates convened emergency town halls for the thousands of agency staffers and contractors looking for answers. Embassy officials said they had been given no guidance on what to tell staffers, particularly local hires, about their employment status.
A USAID contractor posted in an often violent region of the Middle East said the shutdown had placed the contractor and the contractor's family in danger because they were unable to reach the U.S. government for help if needed. The contractor woke up one morning earlier this week blocked from access to government email and other systems, and an emergency “panic button” app was wiped off the contractor's smartphone.
“You really do feel cut off from a lifeline,” the contract staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a Trump administration ban forbidding USAID workers to speak to people outside their agency.
Despite the administration's assurances that the U.S. government would bring the agency's workers safely home as ordered within 30 days, many feared being stranded in the field and left to make their own way home. Their colleagues in Washington described reactivating employee networks that had helped in the past to bring local staffers out of danger zones.
The late-night order Tuesday to abandon USAID posts worldwide comes as many of the aid workers abroad are locked out of email and emergency communications with their own government. Most agency spending has been ordered frozen, and most workers at the Washington headquarters have been taken off the job, making it unclear how the administration will manage and pay for the abrupt relocation of thousands of staffers and their families.
The mass removal of thousands of staffers would doom billions of dollars in projects in some 120 countries, including security assistance for Ukraine and other countries, as well as development work for clean water, job training and education, including for schoolgirls under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
The online notification to USAID workers and contractors said they would be off the job, effective just before midnight Friday, unless deemed essential. Direct hires of the agency overseas got 30 days to return home, while contractors would be fired, the notice said.
Thousands already had been laid off and programs worldwide shut down after Trump, a Republican, imposed a sweeping freeze on foreign assistance. Despite outcry from Democratic lawmakers, the aid agency has been a special target as the administration and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency look to shrink the government.
They have ordered a spending stop that has paralyzed U.S.-funded aid and development work, gutted the agency's senior leadership and workforce with furloughs and firings, and closed the Washington headquarters to staffers Monday.
“Spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk boasted on X.
The United States is the world’s largest humanitarian donor by far. It spends less than 1% of its budget on foreign assistance, a smaller share of its budget than some countries.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of food and medication already delivered by U.S. companies are sitting in ports because of the shutdown.
Health programs like those credited with helping end polio and smallpox epidemics and an acclaimed HIV/AIDS program that saved more than 20 million lives in Africa have stopped. So have programs for monitoring and deploying rapid-response teams for contagious diseases such as an Ebola outbreak in Uganda.
South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi told Parliament on Wednesday that officials scrambled to meet with U.S. Embassy staff for information after receiving no warning the Trump administration would freeze crucial funding for the world’s biggest national HIV/AIDS program.
South Africa has the world’s highest number of people living with HIV, at around 8 million, and the United States funds around 17% of its $2.3 billion-a-year program through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. The health minister did not say whether U.S. exemptions for lifesaving care affect that work.
Democrats and others say the USAID is enshrined in legislation as an independent agency and cannot be shut down without congressional approval. Supporters of USAID from both political parties say its work overseas is essential to countering the influence of Russia, China and other adversaries and rivals abroad, and to cementing alliances and partnerships.
Half a dozen Democratic members of Congress were expected to speak Wednesday at a rally that gathered hundreds of demonstrators across the street from the U.S. Capitol.
The decision to withdraw direct-hire staff and their families earlier than their planned departures will probably cost the government tens of millions of dollars in travel and relocation costs. Staff ordered on leave include both foreign and civil service officers who have legal protection against arbitrary dismissal and being placed on leave without reason.
The American Foreign Service Association, the union which represents U.S. diplomats, sent a notice to its members denouncing the decision and saying it was preparing legal action to counter or halt it.
Locally employed USAID staff, however, do not have much recourse and were excluded from the federal government’s voluntary buyout offer.
USAID staffers and families faced wrenching decisions as the rumored order loomed, including whether to pull children out of school midyear. Some gave away pet cats and dogs, fearing the administration would not give workers time to complete the paperwork to bring the animals with them.
The announcement came as Secretary of State Marco Rubio was on a five-nation tour of Central America and met this week with embassy and USAID staff at two of the region’s largest USAID missions: El Salvador and Guatemala.
At a news conference Tuesday, Rubio said he has “long supported foreign aid. I continue to support foreign aid. But foreign aid is not charity.” He noted that every dollar the U.S. spends must advance its national interests.
The online notice says those who will be exempted from leave include staffers responsible for “mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs” and would be informed by Thursday afternoon.
“Thank you for your service,” the notice concluded.
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Lee reported from Guatemala City.