State Department to Recall USAID Staff From Abroad

The State Department has started working to recall all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees who are abroad on foreign assignments, ABC News reported Tuesday, citing multiple sources.

According to CBS News, all USAID overseas missions were told to shut down and all staff members are being recalled by Friday. "New USAID Deputy Admin Peter Marocco told State Dept leadership today if they didn't do it they'd be evacuated by the military, per sources," CBS White House reporter Sara Cook wrote in a post on X.

On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was made acting administrator of USAID, as President Donald Trump and his team explore folding the agency into the State Department as part of a larger plan to shrink the size of the federal government, a senior White House official told Reuters.

"There are discussions about merging USAID into the State Department to significantly reduce the size of the workforce for efficiency purposes and to ensure their spending is in line with the president's agenda," the official said.

"President Trump has entrusted Elon [Musk] to oversee the efficiency of this agency," the official said of the tech billionaire who has become a top Trump adviser.

Democrats have slammed Musk's moves to cut waste and fraud from government as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, with Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., calling on a crowd in front of USAID's Washington, D.C., headquarters to stop Musk from dismantling the agency in video shared on X.

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