Donald Trump continues with his policy of closing organizations and withdrawing the US from many international institutions. This time it was Elon Musk, the current head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in Donald Trump's administration, who has stated that he has spoken with the president about the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) and he has agreed to close it, reports Efe.
Musk explained during a late-night debate on Monday at one of his companies, X Spaces, that he has reviewed Usaid's problems in detail with Trump and asked him several times if he was sure he wanted to close it, and he agreed to do so, according to the American media Axios.
During the debate, Musk described Usaid as a "can of worms." "It became clear that it's not an apple with a worm inside," Musk said. "What we have is simply a can of worms. We need to get rid of it all. It's beyond repair," he added.
Musk's statements about the agency's future, coming from one of Trump's main supporters in his new government, follow the Republican president's decision to freeze almost all funds for foreign aid programs from Usaid for ninety days, whose budget exceeded 60 billion dollars during President Joe Biden's term.
Israel and Egypt are exempt from the freezing of funds from this agency, which in 2023 helped 180 countries, with Ukraine at the top (over 17.000 million dollars), followed by Israel (3.300 million), Jordan (1.686 million), and Egypt (1.500 million dollars)
Axios also reports that representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by the billionaire, had visited Usaid's headquarters in Washington and accessed classified spaces and data of American citizens.
Since Trump took office for a second term, Usaid, an independent federal agency responsible for planning and managing economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide, has been in the crosshairs of his administration, especially Elon Musk.
The South African billionaire referred to Usaid on Sunday on his social media platform X as a "criminal organization" and added that "it's time for it to die."
Trump also said last Sunday that the agency, established in 1961 and with over 10,000 employees, was run by "radical lunatics."
Meanwhile, Democratic senators in the US Senate wrote a letter on Sunday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, demanding answers about the DOGE staff's visit to Usaid and the subsequent suspension of the agency's senior staff responsible for managing civil foreign aid and development assistance.
Both Usaid's website and its social media accounts have been shut down.
Freezing Usaid's activities or closing it jeopardizes programs that rely on millions of dollars in aid it provides to other countries to improve living conditions through legitimate economic opportunities, building local institutional capacity to address social needs, or expanding access to financial services, among others.