Humanitarian aid experts expressed alarm at the new cuts to an agency whose humanitarian aid has gained Washington influence and saved lives across the globe for more than 60 years. USAID plays a major role in co-ordinating earthquake assistance.
Thousands of USAID staff and Foreign Service officers assigned to the agency learned in an internal memo that all positions not required by law would be eliminated in July and September.
The move follows a US appeals court ruling that Elon Musk and members of the cost-focused Department of Government Efficiency can make further cuts to the USAID they appeal a lower court order that had barred them from doing so.
A three-judge panel of the Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a Maryland federal court judge was wrong to conclude that Musk and DOGE likely violated the US Constitution in dismantling the agency.
US Representative Gregory Meeks, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that closing USAID was illegal and aimed at withdrawing the US "from its global leadership role with as much cruelty and disruption as possible."
The exact number of personnel being fired was not immediately available.
As of March 21, there were 869 US direct hire personnel on active duty and working, while 3848 others were on paid administrative leave, according to Stand Up for Aid, a grassroots advocacy group.
In his memo, Jeremy Lewin, the agency's acting deputy administrator and a member of DOGE, said agency personnel worldwide would shortly receive emailed termination notices giving them the choice of being fired on July 1 or September 2.
Over the next three months, the State Department would assume USAID's remaining "life-saving and strategic aid programming," he said, adding that USAID personnel will not automatically be transferred to the department, which would conduct "a separate and independent hiring process."
Trump in January ordered a 90-day freeze of all US foreign aid and a review of whether aid programs were aligned with his policy. He claimed without evidence that Musk had found fraud at the agency, which he said was run by "radical left lunatics."
Musk and DOGE gained access to USAID's payment and email systems, froze many payments and told much of its staff they were being placed on leave.
On Friday, a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the State Department had notified the US Congress of its intent to reorganise USAID, saying the agency had "strayed from its original mission long ago."
"We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens," Rubio said.
The decision to cut the remaining USAID jobs sparked concern among humanitarian aid experts, who said the firings and funding cuts would prevent a concerted US response to the deadly earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand.
In a post on X, Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who is president of Refugees International, called the move "a total abdication of decades of US leadership in the world."
Rubio said earlier this month that more than 80 per cent of all USAID programs had been cancelled.
with AP
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