Trump officials circulate plan to overhaul US foreign assistance
Trump administration officials are proposing new plans to overhaul how America gives out foreign assistance in the wake of efforts to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
In memos circulating on social media, Trump administration officials call for moving USAID’s independent operations under the authority of the State Department and renaming its work the U.S. Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance (IHA).
USAID’s independent operations were enshrined by Congress, and a federal judge ruled earlier this week that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) likely acted unconstitutionally in its two-month blitz to effectively shutter the agency.
Another federal judge ruled earlier this month that President Trump overstepped his constitutional authority with his administration’s initial freeze of foreign aid.
Democrats have loudly protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DOGE’s shutdown of USAID, which involved closing its facilities, cutting staff off from their emails and terminating the majority of programs.
Republicans have publicly backed the moves as in line with reducing government’s cost, while privately pushing to maintain U.S. foreign assistance as a key tool of national security.
Rubio, in a letter to lawmakers in February that was reported by The Wall Street Journal, said he intends to work with Congress to reorganize USAID rather than eliminate it.
The memo circulating in the State Department gives one view of the potential future of U.S. foreign assistance, focused into three pillars.
The first pillar calls for dismantling USAID but acknowledges this could require an act of Congress and changes to the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act (FAA) and the Pay Act. The goal would be to abolish USAID’s mandate as an independent institution, rename it under the acronym IHA, and get rid of the need for a Senate-confirmed administrator in favor of a politically appointed head who would not be subject to Senate confirmation.
The memo shared by Politico says the president's fiscal 2026 funding request should call for a series of changes to appropriations accounts and that Congress would have to adopt these changes in final legislation that can pass both chambers.
The changes include the abolition of the Development Assistance and Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia accounts; the merger of the Migration and Refugee Assistance and International Disaster Assistance accounts; the transfer of the Transition Initiatives account to the Department of State; and the elimination of congressional directives on the Economic Support Fund.
The second pillar calls for merging at least three agencies: the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.
The memo calls for the Trump administration to request to rescind certain funds from the 2024 appropriations and funnel them into the MCC and DFC. The combined entity would have a “sole focus of generating American jobs and capital returns” focused on trade, investment, infrastructure (physical and digital) and “projecting America’s energy and technology dominance.”
The memo says that the new entity would act as a major counterweight to China’s Belt and Road Initiative — which Beijing used to invest economically and diplomatically in countries it sought to gain influence.
A third pillar calls for consolidating all “politically oriented” programs that the Trump administration might want to pursue, including those aimed at promoting democracy, empowering women, combatting human trafficking, safeguarding religious freedom, “and the persecuted Church,” the memo states.
“This realignment would recognize these programs as ‘inherently diplomatic or political and need direct command and control of the secretary of State,” the memo reads
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