The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) needs to be shut down, U.S. businessman Elon Musk, the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Trump administration, said early Monday.
Established more than half a century ago, USAID has long been accused of being a front for the CIA and staging color revolutions. Who would have thought that there would come a time when USAID itself would be called a “viper’s nest” in the United States that needs “to die”. BelTA’s review looks into USAID, the latest news on the Agency and the reasons why the new U.S. administration decided to clean up the “viper’s nest”.
What is USAID?
USAID was established in 1961 under the administration of President John F. Kennedy. USAID is considered an independent agency of the U.S. government, but is subordinate to the President, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Council. The agency has offices in more than 100 countries around the world and employs over 10,000 people.
USAID positions itself as a "humanitarian" agency. However, its tasks also include “promoting democracy” around the world, supporting NGOs and “independent” media in third countries. In this regard, USAID has repeatedly been accused of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
USAID's links with intelligence have been repeatedly exposed, TASS reports. Some failures of CIA employees working under USAID's umbrella made headlines. Many political experts, including U.S. scholars, for example, William Blum, claimed that all coups or regime change attempts in Latin America over the past decades involved employees of the CIA and the Agency for International Development, providing appropriate training for the opposition leaders, their financing, political, ideological and technical support.
In parallel, the Agency has been working to “modernize and revitalize” the security services that have recruited agents to provide armed support to the opposition in a critical situation. The subversive operations are funded through the Office of Transition Initiatives. In 2009, a congressional report said that “its work often lends itself to political entanglements that may have diplomatic implications.”
In 2013, Bolivia stopped cooperating with USAID, citing the agency's interference in the country's internal affairs (as it transferred multimillion-dollar assistance to separatist groups trying to split the country).
Established more than half a century ago, USAID has long been accused of being a front for the CIA and staging color revolutions. Who would have thought that there would come a time when USAID itself would be called a “viper’s nest” in the United States that needs “to die”. BelTA’s review looks into USAID, the latest news on the Agency and the reasons why the new U.S. administration decided to clean up the “viper’s nest”.
What is USAID?
USAID was established in 1961 under the administration of President John F. Kennedy. USAID is considered an independent agency of the U.S. government, but is subordinate to the President, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Council. The agency has offices in more than 100 countries around the world and employs over 10,000 people.
USAID positions itself as a "humanitarian" agency. However, its tasks also include “promoting democracy” around the world, supporting NGOs and “independent” media in third countries. In this regard, USAID has repeatedly been accused of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
USAID's links with intelligence have been repeatedly exposed, TASS reports. Some failures of CIA employees working under USAID's umbrella made headlines. Many political experts, including U.S. scholars, for example, William Blum, claimed that all coups or regime change attempts in Latin America over the past decades involved employees of the CIA and the Agency for International Development, providing appropriate training for the opposition leaders, their financing, political, ideological and technical support.
In parallel, the Agency has been working to “modernize and revitalize” the security services that have recruited agents to provide armed support to the opposition in a critical situation. The subversive operations are funded through the Office of Transition Initiatives. In 2009, a congressional report said that “its work often lends itself to political entanglements that may have diplomatic implications.”
In 2013, Bolivia stopped cooperating with USAID, citing the agency's interference in the country's internal affairs (as it transferred multimillion-dollar assistance to separatist groups trying to split the country).
In 2014 a scandal erupted around USAID activities in Cuba. Associated Press journalists obtained documents showing that USAID employees recruited rap artists to destabilize the situation in the country and undermine the government, and also sent students from Venezuela and Peru to Cuban universities to turn local students against the government.
USAID activities in Russia were terminated in September 2012. The American agency was accused of trying to influence political processes in Russia through the distribution of grants, including for elections of various levels and civil society institutions. The agency's work in Russian regions, especially in the North Caucasus, raised a lot of questions.
How did USAID fall from grace?
On 20 January President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily suspending all U.S. foreign assistance programs for 90 days. The order said that the foreign aid industry and bureaucracy “serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”
Following this, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a directive prohibiting the State Department and USAID from providing aid overseas until the relevant programs are reviewed. These departments account for the bulk of foreign aid allocated by the United States. Thus, in the 2024 fiscal year, USAID allocated $35.44 billion. One of the largest recipients of aid was Ukraine.
However, the suspension of foreign aid did not end there. According to BBC, last week, several dozen USAID employees were placed on administrative leave and lost access to their email account.
On 1 February USAID Director of Security John Voorhees and his deputy were placed on leave after they refused Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials access to the agency's secure systems. According to Reuters, they tried to block DOGE employees from entering highly secure area used for reviewing classified information.
After the security officials were threatened with criminal charges, DOGE staffers were given access to several secure areas, including the agency's security office and executive secretariat.
On 2 February Musk asked his followers on X: "Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including Covid-19, that killed millions of people?"
He also called the agency a criminal organization. “USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die,” Musk stated. “USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America,” he added.
What's happening with USAID now?
“The fate of the US Agency for International Development appeared bleak,” CNN reported.
USAID’s headquarters in Washington was closed for the day with employees told in an email to remain at home. Logos and photos of its aid work have been stripped from building walls. Its website has gone dark, replaced with a reduced version of its webpage on the State Department’s website. Moreover, USAID's account on the social network X stopped working.
On 3 February, Musk stated that he discussed the issue of USAID operations with the U.S. president. “I went over the USAID issue in detail with (the president), and he agreed we should shut it down,” Musk said on X.
He also stressed that USAID is “beyond repair”. “We are in the process of liquidating USAID,” the businessman said.
“What we have here is not an apple with a worm it in. But we have actually just a ball of worms. There is no apple. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing,” Musk added.
One USAID worker told CNN that the agency workers feel like they are “walking around with a target on their back”, adding that the heads of all USAID departments have been fired.
Multiple sources told CNN that about 60 senior USAID staff were put on leave last week on accusations of attempting to circumvent Trump’s executive order to freeze foreign aid for 90 days.
Meanwhile, as Bloomberg notes, foreign officials, diplomats and organizations around the world are “frantically trying to figure out” what will happen to the U.S. agency that doles out over $40 billion in "aid". Bloomberg calls USAID “a cornerstone of the U.S. global influence” and Trump's decision to suspend foreign aid a halt to “one of the engines of the country’s geopolitical influence.”
Top global donors including the UK, France and Germany have also cut foreign aid in recent years. But none spend as much as the US, and Trump's actions will have broad geopolitical ramifications, Bloomberg concludes.
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