Rubio announces cancellation of most USAid programs
Secretary of state Marco Rubio has announced that USAid will cancel the majority of its programs, while the rest will be folded into the state department.
Writing on X, Rubio said:
After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID.
The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.
In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department.
Thank you to DOGE and our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform.
It’s unclear what impact the decision will have on a federal judge’s deadline today for the dismantled aid agency to pay $2b in bills:
Key events
Ontario imposes tax on power exports to three US states in retaliation for tariffs
Ontario premier Doug Ford announced a 25% tax on exports of electricity to New York, Minnesota and Michigan in retaliation for the tariffs Donald Trump imposed on Canada last week, the Associated Press reports.
Trump has since exempted many Canadian products from the 25% levies, but Ford refused to back down and warned he may increase the surcharge or even cut off electricity exports entirely if the United States escalates its tariffs.
Here’s more, from the AP:
“I will not hesitate to increase this charge. If the United State escalates, I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference in Toronto.
“Believe me when I say I do not want to do this. I feel terrible for the American people who didn’t start this trade war. It’s one person who is responsible, it’s President Trump.”
Ford said Ontario’s tariff would remain in place despite the one-month reprieve from Trump, noting a one-month pause means nothing but more uncertainty. Quebec is also considering taking similar measures with electricity exports to the U.S.
Ford’s office said the new market rules require any generator selling electricity to the U.S. to add a 25% surcharge. Ontario’s government expects it to generate revenue of $300,000 Canadian dollars ($208,000) to CA$400,000 ($277,000) per day, “which will be used to support Ontario workers, families and businesses.”
The new surcharge is in addition to the federal government’s initial CA$30 billion ($21 billion) worth of retaliatory tariffs have been applied on items like American orange juice, peanut butter, coffee, appliances, footwear, cosmetics, motorcycles and certain pulp and paper products.
The day so far
Secretary of state Marco Rubio announced that USAid had cancelled the majority of its programs, while the rest will be folded into the state department. The decision was reportedly made early, and after many of the shuttered aid agency’s partners believed they had more time to request to preserve their programs. It was also met with approval from Elon Musk, after reports emerged last week that he squabbled with Rubio at a cabinet meeting attended by Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the arrest of pro-Palestinian activist and US green card holder Mahmoud Khalil by immigration agents has sparked concerns that the Trump administration is looking to retaliate against speech it does not approve of. The homeland security department said Khalil’s detention was in line with an executive order targeting “activities aligned to Hamas”.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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Wall Street fell significantly as traders grew concerned over the possibility that Trump’s trade war will send the US economy into a recession.
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A top state department official has a history of insulting his boss in social media posts, among many other questionable statements.
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Trump will sign more executive orders at 3pm, though the White House did not say what they will concern.
Ihan Omar, a Democratic congresswoman and critic of Israel, had this to say about news that pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil had been arrested:
Utterly outrageous. This is un-American.
The forced disappearance of Mahmoud Khalil for nothing more than constitutionally protected speech is a clear assault on first amendment rights and a blatant act of authoritarianism.
Khalil must be released.
The Trump administration has been quick to highlight arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. But, as the Guardian’s Marina Dunbar reports, not everyone they arrest is in the country illegally:
A Virginia man who was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents despite being an American citizen says he is reconsidering his support for Donald Trump in his triumphant 2024 presidential election campaign.
Jensy Machado, a naturalized US citizen, said he was in a car when he was stopped by Ice agents while on his way to work in Manassas, Virginia, where a large-scale immigration enforcement operation was recently taking place after Trump took office for a second time in January following repeated campaign promises of mass deportations.
“They just got out of the car with the guns in their hands and say: ‘Turn off the car, give me the keys, open the window,’ you know. Everything was really fast,” the 38-year-old Machado told the news stations Telemundo 44 and NBC 4 Washington.
Machado was driving to work with two other men when Ice suddenly stopped him near his home. Agents brandishing guns surrounded his truck.
“I was a Trump supporter,” he said on Wednesday. “I voted for Trump last election, but, because I thought it was going to be like … against criminals, not every Hispanic, Spanish-lookalike.”
According to Machado, the agents told him the name of a man who had a deportation order and had given Machado’s home address. He responded by telling the agents that man’s name wasn’t his – and offered to show them his Virginia driver’s license.
But he says that the agents did not ask to see his ID. Instead, they ordered him to leave his car, and they placed handcuffs on him. An agent then asked Machado how he got into the country.
The homeland security department has confirmed that pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest was related to an executive order signed by Donald Trump that is intended to crack down on “activities aligned to Hamas”.
In response, IfNotNow, an association of American Jews opposed to Israel’s policy towards Palestinians, said Khalil’s arrest amounted to an “abduction”:
This weekend, the Trump administration abducted and disappeared Palestinian Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who holds a green card, for protesting the Israeli military’s genocidal assault on his people. Plainclothes DHS agents seized Mahmoud as he was returning home with his wife, who is eight months pregnant, and is reportedly holding him in a detention center in Louisiana. This attack, which most acutely targets Palestinian students and advocates for Palestinian rights, also enables Trump’s authoritarian consolidation of power against his political opponents.
It is utterly despicable that they are carrying out this authoritarian lurch under the guise of fighting for Jewish safety. Let’s be perfectly clear: not only does destroying higher education and abducting students for political speech not keep Jews safe, it actively endangers us. Laying waste to our democracy and people’s lives in the name of protecting Jews will inevitably foster resentment of us and only grow the antisemitic threats we face.
Here’s more on what we know about Khalil’s arrest:
Donald Trump’s decision to cut back on assistance to Ukraine – including military aid and intelligence sharing that Kyiv has relied on for its defense – is not sitting well with everyone in his party.
From the Capitol, Nebraska congressman Don Bacon told CNN that Trump was turning his back on the United States’s promise as a protector of freedom globally:
We were the leader of the free world, but it appears to many leaders and people all over, to include Republicans in Nebraska, that this administration is walking away from that legacy that was built by Ike Eisenhower and all these presidents and really a capstone of Ronald Reagan peace through strength and building these close alliances, and we are undermining that legacy right now.
I’m not interested in a foreign policy that is totally built on realism or transactionalism, where it’s just what do we have in it for us. I believe in having a foreign policy that’s a mix of realism, protecting our country, and idealism, where we’re the leaders standing for freedom, free markets, rule of law, and … we got to be clear eyed, but also have moral clarity.
Zelenskyy arrives in Saudi Arabia as US expects ‘substantial progress’ in Ukraine talks
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Saudi Arabia for negotiations that could pave the way for a minerals deal sought by the United States, which last week cut off aid and intelligence sharing Ukraine relies on to fend off the Russian invasion.
Earlier in the day, Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, said he expected “substantial progress” in the talks, which he said would be aimed at securing “a framework for a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire”.
We have a separate live blog covering this fast-moving story, and you can follow it here:
Donald Trump’s dismantling of USAid will strike a sharp blow to efforts to confront the climate crisis, the Guardian’s Fiona Harvey reports:
Donald Trump’s withdrawal of US overseas aid will almost decimate global climate finance from the developed world, data shows, with potentially devastating impacts on vulnerable nations.
The US was responsible last year for about $8 in every $100 that flowed from the rich world to developing countries, to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather, according to data from the analyst organisation Carbon Brief.
About $11bn was spent last year, and a similar amount would have been spent by the US on climate finance this year under a continuation of Joe Biden’s plans, the analysis found.
But among the first actions of Trump on resuming the US presidency, in a turbulent two months, have been to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, and to eviscerate overseas aid efforts, of which climate finance is a part.
The White House has halted much of the funding to USAid, the government’s overseas aid agency that provides about a third of US climate finance, and contributions to the international Green Climate Fund and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.
Tariff fears spark Wall Street sell off
US stock indices are dropping in early morning trading as Wall Street fears Donald Trump’s trade war against major US partners and vows to impose further tariffs beginning next month will spark a recession.
As of the time of this post, the broad-based S&P 500 was down 1.7%, and the tech-rich Nasdaq had dropped 2.7%. Both indices had fallen throughout last week, after Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico and doubled them on China, though he later relaxed the levies on the United States’s neighbors.
We have a live blog covering the latest in business news, and you can read it here:
Meanwhile, CNN reports that a top state department official was hired despite having a history of insulting his boss, secretary of state Marco Rubio.
Darren Beattie, the acting under secretary of state for public diplomacy, deleted tweets calling Rubio “low IQ”, among other disparagements. Beattie has a history of offensive social media comments, and was removed from his job as a White House speechwriter in 2018 after he attended a conference of white nationalists.
He’s nonetheless back in the second Trump administration. Here’s what he once thought of Rubio:
In a now-deleted tweet on January 7, 2021, Beattie invoked far-right conspiracy theories about Rubio’s past, referencing “Wainwright Park” — a curfew violation from Rubio’s teenage years that was later twisted into baseless speculation that Rubio is gay — and “foam,” a reference to similarly unfounded claims about Rubio attending foam parties at gay nightclubs.
“Forget Wainwright park, forget the foam, forget the war promotion and the neocon sugar daddies, forget the low IQ, forget the 2016 primary, Rubio is TOUGH ON CHINA (and good for military industrial complex) So be a good DOG and vote for him!!!” Beattie wrote.
A follow-up tweet about Rubio said, “What happens in the Cabana stays in the Cabana #Rubio.”
Beattie followed up his tweet with one that mocked what he perceived as Rubio’s attempt to rebrand himself as a nationalist, while sarcastically saying he supported tax credits for Black Lives Matter and criticizing his hawkish rhetoric on China.
“If a bunch of DC wonks try to reinvent Marco Rubio as a nationalist, but a ‘respectable’ one who promises tax credits to BLM supporters and is “TOUGH ON CHINA” will you be a good dog and vote for him?” the tweet said.
“Does Marco Rubio have a future in politics?” Beattie asked in another deleted tweet.
Beattie deleted three other tweets from July 23, 2020, that called efforts to rebrand Rubio a nationalist a “scam,” “nonsense” and “fake.”
“The idea behind the Hawley/Rubio scam is this. They are smart enough to know the rebranded neoconservatism of Nikki Haley and Crenshaw has no legs. Also smart enough to know free-market libertarianism has no legs,” Beattie wrote.
The Bulwark has more reporting on Marco Rubio’s announcement that most of USAid’s programs had been canceled, including that the decision appears to have been made earlier than expected:
State officials had actually been notified last week that agencies and partners had until March 12 (i.e., Wednesday) to submit forms to the Office of Foreign Assistance for the foreign aid review process. USAID was operating on that timeline, though through a parallel review track. “The Office of Foreign Assistance (F) will coordinate Department of State responses to OMB,” read the email reviewed by The Bulwark.
A source familiar with the matter said the forms that they were being asked to submit involved numerous questions that had to be filled out for “every single partner.” Some people were simultaneously working through official channels to get previously canceled USAID awards un-terminated as of Friday.
But two days before the March 12 deadline, Rubio announced the review was over: 5,200 contracts were cancelled, and “in consultation with Congress,” he wrote, the administration intends “for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department.”
Elon Musk responded to Marco Rubio’s announcement of major cuts to USAid, and wrote:
Tough, but necessary. Good working with you.
The important parts of USAID should always have been with Dept of State.
Last week, it was reported that Rubio and Musk argued in front of Donald Trump during a meeting of cabinet secretaries, which the president denied. Nonetheless, the Tesla billionaire and chair of the “department of government efficiency” has made a point of publicly complimenting Rubio.
