US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will cease all foreign aid as of 1 July.
“As of 1 July, USAID will officially cease providing foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programmes that are consistent with the administration’s policies and advance American interests will be managed by the State Department, where they will be carried out with greater accountability, strategy and effectiveness,” Rubio said in a statement released by the State Department.
He said USAID considered its audience to be the United Nations, multinational non-governmental organisations and the broader global community, not the American taxpayers who funded its budget, USAID positioned its programmes as charitable, not as tools of American foreign policy designed to advance America’s national interests.
“That ends today, and where there was once a rainbow of unknown logos on vital aid, there will now be one recognisable symbol: the American flag. Recipients deserve to know that the aid they receive is not a handout from an unknown non-governmental organisation, but an investment by the American people,” the Secretary of State added.
Rubio noted that future U.S. aid will be targeted and time-limited. He said Washington will prioritise countries that have “demonstrated the ability and desire to help themselves” and direct resources to where they can have a “multiplier effect and catalyse sustainable private sector, including US companies, and global investment.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in March that Washington was cancelling 83% of USAID programmes.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) came into existence in 1961. In 2025, its budget for assistance to other countries was to be $42.8 billion. The agency funded humanitarian programmes around the world, among other things.
US President Donald Trump froze USAID aid to foreign countries for 90 days in January as part of a policy to cut government spending. USAID’s management came under the control of the US State Department.