Washington (AP) – The US Agency for International Development’s website took place offline without explanation on Saturday while thousands of content, layoffs and programs closings continued in the freezing of President Donald Trump On foreign aid funded by the United States worldwide.
Congress Democrats fought against the Trump administration increasingly openly, expressing the concern that Trump could go towards the end of the USAID as an independent agency and absorb it in the State Department. Democrats say that Trump has no legal power to eliminate an independent agency funded by Congress and that USAID work is vital for national security.
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Trump and the Congress Republicans say that a large part of the foreign aid and development programs is a waste. They distinguish the programs they say they advance liberal social agendas.
The fear of an even more difficult administration action against USAID comes two weeks after the administration of billions of dollars in humanitarian, development and security of the United States.
The United States is by far the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid. It spends less than 1% of its budget on foreign assistance, a share as a whole smaller than certain other countries.
Administration officials made no comments on Saturday when they asked them for the concerns expressed by legislators and others that Trump was planning to end USAID as an independent agency.
President John F. Kennedy created at the height of the Cold War to counter Soviet influence. USAID today is at the center of the American challenges with the growing influence of China, which has a “Belt and Road” foreign aid program succeeded in itself.
The congress adopted the law on foreign assistance in 1961 and Kennedy signed this law and a decree establishing USAID as an independent agency.
USAID employees spent discussion groups on Friday and Saturday on the fate of their agency on Friday, giving updates on the question of whether the agency’s flag and panels were still outside the Agency’s headquarters in Washington. Late Saturday afternoon, they were.
In an article on X, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said that the presidents cannot eliminate federal agencies appropriate by the Congress by decree, and said that Trump was about to “double a constitutional crisis”.
“This is a despot – who wants to steal taxpayers to enrich his billionaire cabale – the fact,” said Murphy.
Billionaire Elon Musk, advising Trump in a campaign to reduce the federal government in the name of efficiency, has approved messages on his site X calling for dissolving USAID.
“Live by decree, die by decree,” tweeted Musk in reference to USAID.
AP report: Dozens of USAID officials have put on leave while the agency investigates a resistance allegedly to Trump orders
Trump placed an unprecedented 90 -day freeze on foreign aid on his first day in mandate on January 20. Order, a more difficult than expected interpretation of Trump’s frost on January 24, written by Peter Marocco, a Trump’s return policy of Trump’s first mandate, closed thousands of programs through the world and forced content or layoffs of several thousand.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since moved to keep more types of emergency programs strictly vital during frost. Aid groups say that the confusion surrounding programs is still authorized to operate contributes to paralysis in global aid organizations.
Rubio declared Thursday, in its first public comments on the issue, that USAID programs were being examined to eliminate those who are not in the American national interest, but he said nothing about ‘Eliminate as an agency.
The closure of the United States funded programs during the 90-day journal noted that the United States “obtained much more cooperation” of humanitarian, development and security beneficiaries, said Rubio.
Republicans and Democrats fought the agency for years, asking if humanitarian aid and development protects the United States by helping to stabilize partner countries and economies, or is a waste of money. Republicans generally push to give the state more control of the USAID policy and funds. Democrats generally strengthen the autonomy and authority of the USAID.
A version of this legal battle took place in Trump’s first mandate, when Trump tried to reduce the budget for a third party foreign operations.
When the Congress refused, the Trump administration used freezes and other tactics to reduce the flow of funds already appropriate by the congress for foreign programs. The general accounting office then judged that it had violated a law known as law on deduction control.