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Employees of the country's lead agency for foreign aid got a bit of a reprieve when a judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate USAID workers who were put on administrative leave. That only lasts this week, though. It did not stop the Trump administration from canceling aid contracts and sealing off headquarters in Washington. And USAID employees around the world are getting mixed signals from the secretary of state, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: As billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk took aim at USAID, the president made Secretary Rubio the acting administrator. Now embassies have been reaching out to the secretary to try to keep some USAID personnel and programs in place.
JEREMY KONYNDYK: There is chaos, confusion and trauma.
KELEMEN: That's Jeremy Konyndyk, who used to work at USAID and now heads an advocacy group called Refugees International. He says many embassies are freaking out because they have a legal obligation to manage all U.S. assistance, and they need USAID staff to do that.
KONYNDYK: They cannot manage their oversight responsibilities if they don't have the USAID personnel there, so there's just total chaos and confusion. You know, this is not being done in a way that attempts to think through or understand the consequences of these actions. The prime directive is just to destroy as much as possible as quickly as possible.
KELEMEN: NPR has seen several cables from embassies requesting that Rubio keep USAID officials on staff, saying without them, the embassies don't have the contracting officers required to run programs or oversee how the money is being spent. An inspector general's report this week goes further, saying there's no one vetting partners in the Middle East to make sure U.S. taxpayer money is not benefiting terrorists. Secretary Rubio, though, has painted all of this as a normal review process.
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MARCO RUBIO: The goal of our endeavor has always been to identify programs that work and continue them and to identify programs that are not aligned with our national interests and identify those and address them.
KELEMEN: Rubio visited several U.S. embassies in Latin America last week that have large USAID offices. And in public, he repeatedly blamed USAID officials in Washington of failing to cooperate with his review. He also insisted that he is issuing waivers for some aid.
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RUBIO: Let me repeat it in very simple words - if it saves lives, if it's emergency, lifesaving aid - food, medicine, whatever - they have a waiver. I don't know how much clearer we can be.
KELEMEN: In a court filing this week, though, the State Department's union said contracts are being terminated en masse. One official tells NPR that they had no chance to justify programs that have been canceled. Jeremy Konyndyk says Elon Musk and Rubio's director of foreign assistance, Peter Marocco, are moving fast before Rubio gets more warnings from embassies, members of Congress and the courts.
KONYNDYK: So they're trying to kind of speed run the destruction of the agency, dare the courts and Congress to intervene and basically gambling that by the time they would do that, the job will already be finished.
KELEMEN: A court already issued a restraining order that was supposed to allow USAID employees to continue to work and have access to emails. The union says not everyone has access. And employees who have tried to pick up personal items have been turned away from what they were told are the, quote, "former USAID" offices in Washington.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
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