USAID dissolution and foreign aid restructuring under Project 2025
Project 2025's Agency for International Development chapter proposes dissolving USAID and folding its functions into the State Department, centralizing foreign aid under political control, and prioritizing bilateral assistance over multilateral programs—reforms that would diminish independent humanitarian and development expertise.
The USAID chapter of Project 2025 contains proposals that, viewed through a diplomatic lens, could be reframed as an effort to streamline foreign assistance and align aid with strategic interests. The call to integrate USAID into the State Department echoes long-standing critiques of fragmented aid bureaucracy and the need for a coherent foreign policy. This is a structural question about efficiency and accountability: consolidating aid under the Secretary of State could reduce duplication, strengthen oversight, and ensure that taxpayer dollars serve national priorities.
However, the source text also contains language that, if implemented without safeguards, could erode the very integrity of U.S. foreign assistance. The Heritage Foundation argues that USAID has become a 'slush fund' for globalist priorities and that its independence weakens diplomatic coherence—but the proposed solution risks politicizing aid by subordinating development expertise to short-term political goals. The key tension is between 'coordinated foreign policy' and 'independent humanitarian mission.' A diplomatic approach would insist that any restructuring include protections for professional staff, clear guidelines for emergency aid, and mechanisms to prevent aid from becoming a tool of partisan or personal interests. The proposals to reduce multilateral contributions and prioritize bilateral aid could, if done properly, increase accountability and flexibility, but the devil is in implementation: any system that centralizes aid decisions must be paired with transparency and independent oversight to prevent mission creep or diversion of funds.
The humanitarian alternative
Preserve USAID as an independent agency but require it to submit annual joint strategic plans with the State Department, enhancing coordination without sacrificing expertise and speed. Increase its budget by 10% annually for five years, with a mandate to co-invest with allied development agencies and local civil society organizations. Create a specific China-competition development fund within USAID to target regions where Chinese influence is most damaging to U.S. interests.
Rollback path — how this gets undone
This action has already been implemented. These are the concrete levers that could reverse it.
- Congressional re-establishment of USAID as independent agency via new authorizing legislation A future Congress would need to pass a bill (e.g., 'USAID Restoration Act') that re-establishes USAID as an independent agency under the Foreign Assistance Act, reversing the executive action and State Department directive that dissolved it.
- Rescind implementing directives and transfer agreements The next administration must issue an executive order rescinding the merger directive and instructing the State Department and OMB to reverse all personnel, budget, and functional transfers that effected the dissolution.
- Re-appropriation via Congressional appropriations bills Congress must appropriate dedicated funding for a reconstituted USAID in the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill, marking funds specifically for the independent agency's accounts.
Original source — excerpted
project2025 Project 2025 ch. 9: Agency for International Development (pp 252-254)"— 219 — Intelligence Community The NCSC was created in the aftermath of 9 /11 as the Terrorist Threat Integra- tion Center (TTIC), which later became the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) pursuant to President George W. Bush’s Executive Order 13354. 33 The NCTC was an organization of approximately three dozen detainees from across the U.S. government with a mandate to integrate counterterrorism intelligence and missions, including terrorist screening. Eventually: In November 2014 the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) established NCSC by combining [the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive] with the Center for Security Evaluation, the Special Security Center and the National Insider Threat Task Force, to effectively integrate and align counterintelligence and security mission areas under a single organizational construct. The Director of NCSC serves in support of the DNI’s role as Security Executive Agent (SecEA) to develop, implement, oversee and integrate personnel security initiatives throughout the U.S. Government.34 NCSC has added value in such areas as fusing cross-community intelligence for terrorism watchlisting purposes and improving…"