Since President Donald Trump took office in January, there has been a great deal of attention focused on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). With the DOGE team empowered to ferret out government waste and fraud, USAID landed under the microscope, and the more we learned, the uglier things got.
Just two weeks into the administration, newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would be taking over as acting director of the agency.
RUBIO: “I’m the Acting Director of USAID.” pic.twitter.com/6Od3FMLeTL
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 3, 2025
On Tuesday, Rubio shared an even bigger announcement regarding the fate of the agency and the manner in which the U.S. will handle foreign assistance going forward.
July 1 is the first day of a new era of global partnership.
Under the leadership of @POTUS and at the direction of @SecRubio, the State Department will lead a foreign assistance program that prioritizes our national interest.
Read more about Secretary Rubio’s vision for America… pic.twitter.com/ArgGXBzM1U
— Department of State (@StateDept) July 1, 2025
READ MORE: BREAKING: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Announces He Has Taken Over As ‘Acting Director’ of USAID
WATCH: Press Hounds Karoline Leavitt About USAID, and She Comes Off the Top Rope With the Receipts
In a Substack article, Rubio laid out the vision for both, first, by noting the role that USAID was intended to play.
Every public servant has an obligation to American citizens to ensure any programs they fund advance our nation’s interests. During the Trump Administration’s thorough review of thousands of programs, and over $715 billion in inflation-adjusted spending over the decades, it became apparent the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) fell well below this standard.
USAID had decades and a near-infinite taxpayer budget to advance American influence, promote economic development worldwide, and allow billions to stand on their own two feet.
However, as Rubio notes, the agency failed to meet its mission.
Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War. Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown. On the global stage, the countries that benefit the most from our generosity usually fail to reciprocate. For example, in 2023, sub-Saharan African nations voted with the United States only 29 percent of the time on essential resolutions at the UN despite receiving $165 billion in outlays since 1991. That’s the lowest rate in the world. Over the same period, more than $89 billion invested in the Middle East and North Africa left the U.S. with lower favorability ratings than China in every nation but Morocco. The agency’s expenditure of $9.3 billion in Gaza and the West Bank since 1991, whose beneficiaries included allies of Hamas, has produced grievances rather than gratitude towards the United States. The only ones living well were the executives of the countless NGOs, who often enjoyed five-star lifestyles funded by American taxpayers, while those they purported to help fell further behind.
This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end. Under the Trump Administration, we will finally have a foreign funding mission in America that prioritizes our national interests. 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 noted a critical change in the message and framework of U.S. assistance:
[W]here there was once a rainbow of unidentifiable logos on life-saving aid, there will now be one recognizable symbol: the American flag. Recipients deserve to know the assistance provided to them is not a handout from an unknown NGO, but an investment from the American people.
He then outlined the key elements of the new approach to foreign assistance.
Americans should not pay taxes to fund failed governments in faraway lands. Moving forward, our assistance will be targeted and time limited. 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.
…
We will do so by prioritizing trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance. For Americans and many around the world, July 1st will mark the beginning of a new era of global partnership, peace, investment, and prosperity.
Countless lawsuits have been filed against the administration in efforts to forestall its makeover of foreign assistance programs, but it appears a much-needed overhaul is well underway.
Trade over aid.
Opportunity over dependency.
Investment over assistance.A new era of global partnership. pic.twitter.com/NLhlIBVspS
— Department of State (@StateDept) July 1, 2025
Editor’s Note: President Trump is leading America into the “Golden Age” as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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