Rubio touts ‘new era’ of foreign assistance with official closure of USAID

The U.S. Agency for International Development has officially closed, marking “the beginning of a new era of global partnership, peace, investment, and prosperity,” according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Starting Tuesday, the Department of State will take over the work of USAID.

In March, Rubio announced that 83% of USAID programs were being canceled and the agency’s remaining work would be folded into the State Department.

“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” Rubio said in a lengthy statement on Tuesday.

“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.

USAID was first established in 1961 and viewed as a form of diplomacy, but over time, Rubio says, “USAID marketed its programs as a charity, rather than instruments of American foreign policy intended to advance our national interests.”

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has sought to implement an “America First” agenda, refocusing foreign aid and tax dollars to serve the primary interests of the U.S. as the Trump administration defines.

“Too often,” Rubio said, the work of USAID “promoted anti-American ideals and groups, from global ‘DEI,’ censorship and regime change operations, to NGOs and international organizations in league with Communist China and other geopolitical adversaries.”

All U.S. aid that is delivered to other countries will now bear the “recognizable symbol” of the American flag, Rubio said. “Recipients deserve to know the assistance provided to them is not a handout from an unknown NGO, but an investment from the American people.”

When the U.S. does provide humanitarian aid to other nations, it will now be “targeted and time limited,” according to the secretary.

“We will favor those nations that have demonstrated both the ability and willingness to help themselves and will target our resources to areas where they can have a multiplier effect and catalyze durable private sector, including American companies, and global investment,” Rubio said.

Former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush delivered a farewell address to USAID employees in a video on Monday, The Associated Press first reported. Singer Bono joined the two former presidents in bidding the workers goodbye with a poem.

“Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come,” Obama told the USAID workers, adding that “[g]utting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy.”

“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work—and that is your good heart,’’ Bush told USAID staffers, according to The Associated Press. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]