The website of the American agency for international development, or USAID, seemed to be offline on Saturday, while the Trump administration is traveling to put the autonomous agency and its current budget of $ 42.8 billion for global humanitarian operations, under the control of the State Department.
A message indicating that “the server’s IP address could not be found” appeared when attempts were made to access the website on Saturday.
Friday, two familiar sources with the discussions told Reuters that the Trump administration has moved to strip the USAID of its independence as a government agency and put it under the control of the State Department.
The apparent failure of the website comes after the plates withdrew from the agency’s official seal were deleted on Friday, according to Reuters, a sign that the merger in the State Department was in preparation.
This decision comes as the Trump administration has promised to revise the distribution of foreign aid, saying that last week, it gathered foreign aid while doing an exam to ensure that assistance in the world was aligned with Trump’s “American first” foreign policies.
Current and former USAID officials said this week that a purge of senior executives seemed designed to silence any dissent and that the agency passes under the State Department would be a “seismic change”.
“This takes the US government to a place where humanitarian voice will not be in high -level political discussions,” said the official.
In an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal, the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio – who would assume the surveillance of the USAID if he had been or had been placed under the State Department – described a new American diplomatic focus on the Western hemisphere.
Rubio said he would make his first trip as the most senior diplomat in the country in Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
“These nations have been neglected by previous administrations which favored the world on local and exercised policies which accelerated the economic development of China, often at the expense of our neighbors,” Rubio wrote.
Reuters reported that the White House explored the legal authority that Trump could use to issue an executive decree to end the independence of the USAID and that it could sign such a directive on Friday evening or Saturday.
“Look at USAID tonight,” Chris Murphy, a democrat senator and member of the Senate of Foreign Relations on Friday, on Friday.
Chuck Schumer, the head of the Senate minority, citing a “rumor” that Trump was planning to dissolve Usaid as an independent agency, said in a post that such a decision would be “illegal and against our national interests” .
But it is not clear if the president has the legal power to bypass the congress and to order the merger of the USAID in the State Department.
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If it is placed under the State Department, USAID could become a more explicit reinforcement of foreign policy objectives than the world’s largest donor of vital humanitarian operations.
USAID has in the past able to help the countries with which the United States has no diplomatic relationship, including Iran. An agency source told Reuters that non-alignment with the American diplomatic mission had helped build bridges that were perhaps not to purely political objectives.
Perhaps signaling the plan of the new administration to fold the agency under the State Department, Trump did not appoint anyone to lead the USAID.
The costs of a freezing on American foreign help subsidies are already felt. Field hospitals in Thai refugee camps, the release of land mines in war areas and drugs to deal with millions suffering from diseases such as HIV are among the programs faced with the finish.
During fiscal 2023, the United States paid $ 72 billion in the world’s health, from women’s health to conflict areas to access to drinking water, HIV treatment / AIDS, energy security and anti-corruption work. It provided 42% of all humanitarian aid followed by the United Nations in 2024.
Following the executive order of Trump last week, the State Department published global stop work directives, effectively freezing all foreign aid with the exception of emergency food assistance in a decision that experts warned risky to kill people.
Rubio earlier this week made an additional exemption for “vital humanitarian assistance” while Washington undertakes the 90 -day exam.
