Rubio on USAID: It’s not charity, aid should be in US national interest
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the suspension of international aid was necessary to review programmes to ensure that they meet US national interests.
This was reported by Censor.NET with reference to Radio Liberty.
"I continue to support foreign aid. But foreign aid is not charity. It exists to advance the national interests of the United States. Every dollar we spend as long as I am Secretary of State and as long as President Trump is in the White House will be a dollar that advances our national interests," he explained.
Rubio noted that emergency humanitarian aid programmes, including food and medicine, are not subject to the freeze. However, all other initiatives should be reviewed.
The US Secretary of State, who is currently the acting head of USAID, accused the agency of wastefulness, stressing that "in some cases, 10, 12, 13%, maybe less, of USAID money reached the recipient, and the rest went to overheads, bureaucracy".
"We are not going to stop foreign aid. We will have foreign aid that makes sense. We will have foreign aid that works. We will have foreign aid that promotes national interests. We're going to have foreign aid that benefits our trusted partners and our allies," Rubio concluded.
USAID
To recap, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the suspension of foreign aid grants.
Subsequently, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Ukraine received an order to suspend all projects and expenditures on them.
On Saturday, 1 February, the official USAID website stopped working. When users try to access it, they see a message that the server IP address cannot be found.
US billionaire Elon Musk, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to head the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), accused the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of funding research into "biological weapons, including COVID-19".
3 February 2025 the headquarters of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is closed in Washington, DC. Employees were sent notification letters by email.
Afterwards, Marco Rubio announced that he was now acting head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
