Marco Rubio: US cancelling 83% of USAID contracts following 6-week review

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X today (Monday) that the State Department has decided to cancel 83% of USAID grants following a 6-week review.

In his statement, Rubio said that:

"After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.

"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.

"In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department.

"Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform."

Following President Donald Trump's directive to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in government, Elon Musk and his DOGE team, under the direction of the President and with his approval, set about examining all spending under various departments.

One of the first targets was the State Department, and especially USAID, where many rightwing accounts had found multiple large grants spent on niche or ideological matters relating to progressive cultural agendas rather than increasing American influence or helping the broader population.

Rubio's statement regarding consultation with Congress comes following an uproar among Democrats that the decisions to terminate the allocation of Congressionally approved funds was doing harm to America's standing in the world and leading to unjust dismissals.

His thanks to both DOGE and the State Department staff are a clear signal that the two ultimately worked together, despite multiple reports of clashes between Musk and department heads over who has ultimate authority over their departments.

Despite these clashes, Trump has allowed Musk to be present at cabinet meetings and for him to accompany the President during certain trips, and has often stressed that everything Musk does is at his direction or with his approval.