More than 80% of USAID programs cut, Rubio says

(NewsNation) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday that the United States has cut 83% of programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development and said the thousands of canceled contracts did not serve the “core national interests” of the U.S.

Rubio made the announcement in a social media post and said the Trump administration has wrapped up a six-week review.

“The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” he wrote.

Rubio thanked the Department of Government Efficiency and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid.

He said he would transfer the programs that survived the purge to the State Department. 

The announcement was one of few public comments from Rubio on what has been a historic shift away from U.S. foreign aid and development, executed by political appointees of President Donald Trump at the State Department and Elon Musk’s DOGE team.

SCOTUS lifts freeze on some foreign aid

The Trump administration has worked for weeks to dismantle USAID, which oversees foreign aid and development programs.

Thousands of employees have either been put on leave or fired, while the federal government has also frozen payments to contractors.

After a federal court ruling last week, the government must start making payments to contractors on Monday for work already done, which is estimated to cost around $2 billion.

It’s unclear if the cuts will impact the Food for Peace program, which buys billions in food from American farmers to send overseas.