ISTANBUL

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will officially cease implementing foreign assistance July 1, with the assistance program being transferred to the State Department.

“Foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies—and which advance American interests—will be administered by the State Department, where they will be delivered with more accountability, strategy, and efficiency,” Rubio said in a statement.

"Every public servant has an obligation to American citizens to ensure any programs they fund advance our nation's interests," he said.

He said USAID performance, with its spending more than $715 billion over the decades, "fell well below this standard.”

Rubio argued that USAID has created a "globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense" with little to show since the end of the Cold War.

He claimed development objectives have rarely been met, instability often worsened and anti-American sentiment has grown.

“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” said Rubio.

The move follows sweeping efforts to dismantle USAID during President Donald Trump's second term in office, including canceling most contracts, terminating thousands of positions and placing nearly all of the agency’s global workforce on administrative leave.

Rubio previously announced that 83% of USAID programs were canceled following a six-week review.

USAID, established in 1961, managed more than $40 billion in fiscal year 2023.

Last month, the US House of Representatives approved a package that includes $8.3 billion rolled back from the agency.