Rubio Says He’s Acting Head Of Embattled Usaid

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that he is now the acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the latest evidence that the Trump administration is moving to gut the foreign assistance agency and bring it under the control of the State Department.

Speaking in El Salvador during his tour of a spate of Latin American countries, Rubio told a reporter “I’m the acting director of USAID.”

He went on to say that the organization has failed to further U.S. national interests and accused it of considering itself “somehow a global charity.” But he stopped short of saying the Trump administration is going to eliminate the agency, saying "this is not about ending USAID."

Rubio said he has handed off the day-to-day work of running the sprawling aid agency to another official at the State Department.

Spokespersons for USAID, the State Department and the White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The statements follow a chaotic weekend for the 64-year-old aid agency, after discussions around the agency’s future, first reported by POLITICO, gradually evolved into an apparent plan to radically restructure the agency and strip it of its autonomy. Fear mounted among staff that the agency would be dissolved and subsumed by the State Department’s office of foreign assistance, known as the “F bureau.”

The comments from Rubio are likely to send shockwaves through Washington. Congressional Democrats, former USAID officials and humanitarian groups have warned that the efforts to undermine the agency are detrimental to U.S. national security interests because they will leave a vacuum for China and other U.S. rivals to fill in developing countries.

One Democrat, Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, said Monday that he’d put a “blanket hold” on State Department nominees until Trump restores USAID’s autonomy.

Carmen Paun contributed to this report.