The State Department axed over $200 million in foreign grants funded by taxpayer dollars, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Free Beacon.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio slashed around $214 million from 139 grants made by the agency, which focused on foreign assistance programs, including a “media sustainability” program for Moldova costing $14.6 million, a $5.2 million “diversity in media” grant for the United Kingdom and a $500,000 grant to Armenia for “environmental resilience” among many others, according to the Free Beacon. The cuts were made with the aid of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which began helping the agency in February with supplemental reviews of grants.
“The American taxpayers should not be funding misguided programs like “Building the Migrant Domestic Worker-Led Movement” in Lebanon or “Get the Trolls Out!” in the United Kingdom,” Rubio said on X Tuesday. “We are cleaning up the mess the previous administration left and rebuilding an agency that’s focused on putting America First.”
In February, the State Department slashed nearly $60 billion from over 4,000 ongoing grants worth nearly $4.4 billion, while also cutting another $54 billion in multi-year awards overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), according to a memo provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
USAID appropriated over $40 billion in foreign aid in fiscal year 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service. The State Department now fully oversees USAID, with Rubio serving as acting administrator of the group.
DOGE has been working to eliminate wasteful spending under the leadership of Elon Musk, but has recently slowed down as it announced their savings targets were cut by 85% April 11.
USAID was an early target of DOGE, with the agency all but shutting down entirely as heightened scrutiny over its activities led to calls for its closure.
USAID was found to have wasted millions of dollars on a host of superfluous programs, including LGBT missions abroad and supporting left-leaning nonprofits at home who facilitated left-wing protestors.
Additionally, USAID issued a primer on “disinformation” for social media platforms under President Joe Biden’s administration, which encouraged platforms to be more “democratically accountable.”
The State Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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