US secretary of state: USAID should be in line with US national interests, not charity cases
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who recently became acting head of USAID, has said that international aid should be a tool to promote US national interests, not charity. He has emphasised that the Trump administration does not plan to completely cut off support, but only to review payments, cutting ineffective programmes and keeping those that "make sense".
Rubio stressed that the United States froze foreign aid to review it and make it beneficial to partners, and the mechanism of granting exceptions allows USAID to maintain funding for critical projects across the world.
Rubio said that he continues to support foreign aid.
"But foreign aid is not charity. It exists for the purpose of advancing the national interest of the United States. Every dollar we will spend as long as I’m Secretary of State – and as long as President Trump is in the White House – is going to be a dollar that’s advancing our national interests," he said.
Rubio noted that before the funding freeze, the Trump administration could not find out anything about some of the programmes, and USAID "refused to tell us anything".
"We won’t tell you what the money is going to, where the money is for, who has it, which contractor it’s been – in some cases it goes through four different contractors before it reaches the intended recipient. These are not my numbers. These are USAID’s numbers," he said.
Rubio pointed out that in some cases, 10-12-13%, and "maybe less", of USAID money actually reached the recipient, while the rest went to overheads and bureaucracy.
"This isn’t my money. This is taxpayer money. So, we’re not going to eliminate foreign aid. We’re going to have foreign aid that makes sense. We’re going to have foreign aid that works," he said.
Elon Musk is leading the Trump administration's efforts to shut down USAID, making increasingly harsh accusations against it. On Monday, 3 February, agency employees were ordered to stay at home.
Meanwhile, Rubio has been appointed acting head of USAID.