The Trump administration announced a plan on Thursday to significantly reduce staffing for US aid programs as part of efforts to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The plan would leave fewer than 300 employees out of the thousands currently working for the agency.
Senior officials were informed of the plan on Thursday, two current USAID employees and a former senior official, were quoted as saying by the news agency Associated Press.
The plan would reduce the number of staff to fewer than 300 from the current 8,000 direct employees and contractors, the AP report said. In addition, an unspecified number of 5,000 local staff members abroad would continue to run a few aid programs that the administration says will continue for now.
It is unclear whether this reduction will be temporary or permanent. The Trump administration has said it is reviewing which aid and development programs might resume in the future.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio, speaking in the Dominican Republic, said the US would still provide foreign aid.
“But it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interest,” he told reporters.
The Trump administration, along with Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has focused on cutting USAID as part of broader efforts to reduce government programs.
Since President Donald Trump took office on January 20, a funding freeze has stopped most USAID programs worldwide. Nearly all agency employees have been placed on administrative leave or furlough. Trump and Musk have discussed eliminating USAID as an independent agency and shifting its remaining programs under the State Department.
Democratic lawmakers and others argue that these actions require congressional approval and cannot be done unilaterally.