By now the broad story of USAID’s ruin has been widely told: The decree handed down by Trump; Elon Musk, who led the new Department of Government Efficiency; and Russell Vought, who holds the purse strings for the administration as the head of the Office of Management and Budget, to scuttle the agency and undo decades of humanitarian work in the name of austerity. In response to a detailed list of questions, a senior State Department official said fast, drastic changes to foreign aid were necessary to reform a “calcified system.” The world, especially U.S. interests, will be better for it in the long run, the official said, despite “some disruptions in the short term.” The cuts were so frenetic that, for a brief time, the U.S. government stopped paying for the fuel that ran the electricity for the American embassy in Juba, including the security compound, just as violence was surging throughout South Sudan, according to former senior officials.
Author: Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Brett Murphy, and Peter DiCampo
Published at: 2025-12-17 23:23:01
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