Rubio celebrates USAID dismantling despite 'catastrophic' warnings of 14M deaths
Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated the end of operations for the U.S. Agency for International Development on Tuesday with a Substack article titled, "Making Foreign Aid Great Again."
USAID was the nation's largest foreign aid agency with funding that went toward combatting mortality rates from diseases like AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, as well as nutritional deficiencies and maternal mortality. It was one of the very first agencies targeted by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
According to CNN, a "new analysis finds that its closure could contribute to some 14 million deaths in the next five years," painting "a potentially catastrophic picture of what could come now that USAID has been dismantled and the [Trump] administration is turning away from a lot of these foreign assistance funds."
Reporter Jennifer Hansler asked a senior state department official about the analysis, "and they sort of downplayed it. They said that these were based on misassumptions about what the administration was doing, and they claimed that life saving-work would continue."
In his Substack article, Rubio wrote, "As of July 1st, USAID will officially cease to implement foreign assistance. Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies — and which advance American interests — will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy and efficiency."
"Rubio said they are going to be focused now more on trade rather than aid," Hansler said.
It took less than six months for the Trump administration to make good on its promise to dismantle USAID, Hansler reported, adding that "groups on the ground...said the impact has already been devastating."