Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced early Monday morning that a massive 83 percent of USAID programs are being shut down. 

ALSO SEE: Judge Says No to USAID Workers Seeking TRO for Contract Eliminations 

The statement was put on X, but since the social media site is down as of this writing, I'll quote his words from another source. Rubio specifically mentions the canceling of 5,200 contracts totaling "tens of billions" of dollars in spending. The remaining programs, which weren't described, will now be administered by the State Department, essentially shuttering USAID.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Monday that 83 percent of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) programs would be cancelled, essentially capping a dramatic fall for the foreign aid organization under the Trump administration.

“After a 6 week review we are officially cancelling 83% of the programs at USAID,” Rubio said on X.

We can safely assume that among the cuts are money for transgender operas in South America and DEI initiatives in Eastern Europe. There are no doubt lots of other cuts that don't fall into the "woke" bucket, though. For example, USAID money has flowed into Hamas-controlled Gaza for years under the guise of humanitarian aid. All over the world, left-wing NGOs were being given billions of dollars collectively to work against American interests, including propagating the now-former crisis at the Southern Border. It hasn't been confirmed, but of the 83 percent of programs cut, you can bet those NGOs were a big target. 

The next step is USAID being closed for good so that a future Democrat-led administration can't easily re-open it. Any foreign aid should be controlled by the State Department because foreign relations is the entire reason it exists. The federal government did not and does not need another bureaucratic black hole making accountability even more difficult. 

There is a catch, though, and I wouldn't be giving the full story if I didn't share: No money is actually being saved here. 

As of now, the current continuing resolution, which is a copy-paste of the last one that didn't cut spending, fully funds USAID at Biden-era levels. Until Congress stops those appropriations, the federal government is just moving money around. As things currently stand, taxpayers won't realize the savings, and the inflationary aspects of the deficit spending remain.

Prior to President Donald Trump's inauguration, the promise was to use reconciliation in March to make actual cuts. That has now been pushed off to the fall, with the president citing the need to avoid a government shutdown. I say that to say that while I think DOGE combing through all these garbage grants and Rubio canceling them is a very good thing, the tangible payoff for taxpayers won't happen until Congress takes action. For that, we have to wait and hope it's followed through on.