USAID staff told all jobs not required by law to be eliminated

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Personnel of the U.S. Agency for International Development were told on Friday that all positions there not required by law would be eliminated, after the State Department notified Congress it would discontinue USAID functions that do not align with Trump administration priorities.

USAID staff were informed of the decision by an internal memo from Jeremy Lewin, a member of billionaire Elon Musk's job-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, who has been acting as a deputy administrator at the agency.

In the memo, which was reviewed by Reuters, Lewin said all USAID positions not set in law "will be eliminated" and that all agency personnel around the world would shortly receive emails notifying them of the decision. Staff would be given the choice of termination on July 1 or September 2, the memo said.

Over the next three months, the State Department would assume USAID's remaining "life-saving and strategic aid programming," the memo said.

USAID personnel will not automatically be transferred to the State Department, which would assess its needs and conduct "a separate and independent hiring process."

A statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department had notified the U.S. Congress on Friday of its intent to reorganize USAID, saying the agency had "strayed from its original mission long ago. As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high."

"Thanks to President Trump, this misguided and fiscally irresponsible era is now over. We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens," it said.

The statement said the State Department and USAID had notified Congress of their intent to undertake a reorganization "that would involve realigning certain USAID functions to the Department by July 1... and discontinuing the remaining USAID functions that do not align with Administration priorities."

After President Donald Trump began his second term on January 20, Musk's Department of Government Efficiency launched a drive to shrink USAID and merge its remnants into the State Department.

The administration has since fired hundreds of staff and contractors and terminated billions of dollars in services on which tens of millions of people around the world depended.

Rubio said earlier this month that more than 80% of all USAID programs had been canceled.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, David Brunnstrom and Jonathan Landay; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Erin Banco; Editing by Don Durfee, Lisa Shumaker and Bill Berkrot)