The administration of President Donald Trump has made a formal request to Congress to reorganise the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as the Republican leader faces constitutional challenges over his dismantling of the agency so far.

USAID was set up under an act of Congress. But on Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a notification signalling that the Trump administration would fold the agency’s independent functions into the Department of State under executive control.

“We are reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States and our citizens,” Rubio said in a statement on social media. “We are continuing essential lifesaving programs and making strategic investments that strengthen our partners and our own country.”

But critics have accused the Trump administration of exceeding its executive authority — and seeking to undermine independent agencies that do not align with its priorities.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce addressed the matter at a news briefing later in the day.

She said department officials “have notified Congress on their intent to undertake a reorganisation that would involve realigning certain USAID functions to the department by July 1, 2025, and discontinuing the remaining USAID functions that do not align with administrative priorities”.

Bruce also denied that the dismantling of USAID would affect the country’s ability to respond to international disasters like Friday’s earthquakes in Myanmar and Thailand.

“ We are ready to move now. So there has been no impact on our ability to perform those duties, those requests for aid if and when they come in,” she said.

USAID was established under Congress’s authority through the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. But it does operate under the secretary of state.

Until the start of Trump’s second term as president, the agency was one of the largest distributors of foreign aid in the world — but that activity largely stopped when the president implemented a freeze on foreign assistance.

In 2023 alone, the US distributed approximately $72bn in foreign aid. USAID was responsible for distributing about half of that sum.

But Rubio has since announced on social media that 83 percent of USAID’s contracts have been cancelled.

Further employee cuts at USAID

The agency has also suffered massive layoffs, a trend that continued on Friday.

US media obtained an internal memorandum to USAID employees warning that all positions — save those required by law — would be eliminated. Bruce, the State Department spokesperson, asked about the scope of those changes during her briefing.

“With any major change, there’s going to be disruption,” she said, adding that the layoffs were not unexpected.

“We’ve been waiting for this conclusion. It has arrived. I can’t speak to the number of people who will not be a foreign service officer at this point. I can’t say if it’s going to be every single one.”

“ It’s a restructuring essentially,” she continued. “Like any restructuring, there will inevitably be disruptions from Secretary Rubio down. We are committed to ensuring that USAID personnel remain safe and that the agency’s ongoing lifesaving aid programmes remain both intact and operational.”

Bruce tied the layoffs to the Trump administration’s campaign to eliminate alleged “waste and fraud and abuse”, a project led by adviser and billionaire businessman Elon Musk.

Already, in February, USAID saw large-scale cuts to its workforce. About 1,600 people were laid off, and all but a handful of the remaining staff were placed on leave, including those stationed abroad.

Its headquarters in Washington, DC, was also shuttered, and workers were given 15-minute time slots to enter the building and quickly collect their belongings.

Earlier this month, a federal judge issued a ruling that Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways” by dismantling USAID.

Judge Theodore Chuang wrote that Musk and DOGE “deprived the public’s elected representatives in Congress of their constitutional authority to decide whether, when and how to close down an agency created by Congress”.

Through a temporary injunction, Chuang ordered DOGE and Musk to stop their efforts to slash USAID’s staff and contracts. But it is not clear whether that order applies to actions taken by the secretary of state.

But on Friday afternoon, a federal appeals court lifted Chuang’s injunction, allowing DOGE to proceed with its cuts.

Musk has previously boasted that he was involved in “feeding USAID into the wood chipper”.