President Donald Trump's administration is facing scrutiny this week after working with billionaire Elon Musk to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an organization Musk called a "viper's nest" of mismanaged funding.
Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) worked with the Trump administration to shut down USAID on Monday. While the agency's long-term future remains unclear, lawmakers and activists have repeatedly accused USAID of using funding to leverage policy changes across the globe. Under President Joe Biden's administration, the organization was frequently used to push abortion in Africa, critics say.
Biden cleared the path for U.S. funding to flow toward pro-abortion groups across the globe just days after entering office. He signed an executive order rescinding the Reagan-era "Mexico City Rule" on Jan. 28, 2021.
The rule, first rescinded by President Barack Obama and then reinstated during Trump's first term, prevented foreign aid from going to nongovernmental organizations that promote abortion or provide abortion services.
"These excessive conditions on foreign and development assistance undermine the United States’ efforts to advance gender equality globally by restricting our ability to support women’s health," Biden said at the time.
Biden's rule change cleared USAID to send millions in funding to aggressive abortion organizations like Marie Stopes International (MSI). MSI said it relied on USAID for 17% of its total donor income under the Obama administration, adding that the lack of U.S. support created an $80-million "funding gap" over the final three years of Trump's term.
The group said the countries most heavily impacted by the lack of funding were Madagascar, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., accused Biden in 2023 of "hijacking" a successful AIDS relief program to push an international abortion agenda.
Smith's accusations centered on PREPFAR, a funding program within USAID that, at the time, had already allocated some $100 billion toward fighting AIDS across the world, saving 25 million lives and preventing millions of infections.
Smith says two groups, Population Services International (PSI) and Village Reach, had received $96.5 million and $10.1 million, respectively, from PEPFAR under Biden, and both groups have a track record of pushing abortion.
"PSI proudly proclaims it provides abortion and lobbies to eliminate pro-life laws," Smith said at the time. "PSI provides comprehensive abortion and post-abortion care services in nearly 20 countries throughout the world."
Smith alleged Village Reach used PEPFAR funds "to promote abortion in Malawi and lobby for changes in pro-life laws" and also "helped Malawi establish a government-funded hotline (that included providing information and referrals for ‘sexual and reproductive health,’ i.e., abortion)."
A third group, Pathfinder International, received $5 million in PEPFAR funding from 2021 to 2023. Smith said the group "lobbies to weaken or eliminate pro-life laws in nations around the world" and is "explicit in its promotion of abortion in other countries, stating it is "committed to expanding access to … safe abortion."
Biden's administration was accused in December of pressuring the government of Sierra Leone to adopt more permissive abortion policies in exchange for foreign assistance.
A report from the Daily Signal stated that The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. government-run funding allocator, was threatening to withhold hundreds of millions in foreign assistance funding if the nation didn't relax its policies, a former senior U.S. government official told the outlet.
The MCC CEO Alice Albright signed an agreement with Sierra Leone's finance minister, Sheku Bangura, in late September. The agreement called for the country to receive $480 million in foreign assistance so long as it met the MCC's "rigorous standards for good governance, fighting corruption and respecting democratic rights."
The organization denied any effort to influence Sierra Leone's abortion policies in a statement to Fox News Digital in December.
"The Millennium Challenge Corporation is unaware of any Sierra Leonean abortion legislation and has never made any requests to the Government of Sierra Leone regarding abortion policies. Any such legislation would be an internal matter for Sierra Leone with no U.S. government developments fund made contingent on its passage," the organization said in a statement.
Footage circulating on social media showed raucous pro-life protesters demonstrating inside Sierra Leone's parliament at the time as lawmakers debated legislation detailing more permissive abortion rules.
Fox News' Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump's administration has reached a deal to grant the Texas National Guard new authority to make immigration arrests this weekend.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott referenced the deal on social media, saying it would "boost manpower for border security." Under the agreement, Texas National Guard troops would be able to arrest illegal immigrants so long as there is a U.S. immigration officer or Border Patrol agent present. U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Abbott said the deal was "effective immediately" as of Sunday night.
The deal is only the latest front in Trump's nationwide blitz against illegal immigration. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other border security groups have leaned into their deportation efforts since Trump gained office.
Trump's 2024 campaign promised to curb illegal immigration that flourished under the Biden administration. The 47th President promised to deport migrants, including those who had long rap sheets or ties to gangs or terrorist organizations.
On the first day of his second term, Trump issued ten executive orders aimed at overhauling U.S. immigration law and policy. Less than a week back in the Oval Office, Trump touted that he is keeping his promises.
"Within hours of taking the oath of office, I declared a national emergency at our southern border. I sent active duty troops on the border to help repel the invasion. Tom Homan is leading the charge. You know that. We like Tom Homan. Doing a great job," Trump said at a recent rally.
"We immediately halted all illegal entry and began sending every border trespasser and violator back to the places from which they came. I signed an order that will designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. It's a big deal, it's a big deal. Biden didn't want to do that," he added. "Biden didn't know he was alive. He didn't want to do it."
Federal officials deported some 7,300 illegal immigrants in the opening week of Trump's administration alone.
Fox News' Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) workers were informed to stay out of USAID's D.C. headquarters on Monday, a notice disseminated to them indicated, according to the Associated Press.
Workers noted they tracked over 600 workers who reported getting locked out of the USAID computer systems overnight, according to the outlet, which also reported that people who remained in the system got emails stating that "at the direction of Agency leadership" the headquarters facility "will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3."
Elon Musk, who is spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort, had said during an X spaces conversation that President Donald Trump agreed that the USAID should be shut down.
Amid a wave of early shakeups in the new administration, President Donald Trump has twice this month proposed "denuclearization" talks with U.S. adversaries.
"Tremendous amounts of money are being spent on nuclear, and the destructive capacity is something we don’t even want to talk about today, because you don’t want to hear it," Trump mused in remarks to the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, last week.
"I want to see if we can denuclearize, and I think it’s very possible," suggesting talks on the issue between the U.S., Russia and China.
Such an idea could represent a major thawing in U.S. relations with two global adversaries – but beg the question of whether the U.S. could trust the nations to hold up their end of the deal.
President Vladimir Putin announced Russia would suspend its participation in the New START treaty in 2023 over U.S. support for Ukraine. Russia had frequently been caught violating the terms of the deal. But China has never engaged in negotiations with the U.S. over arms reduction.
Trump reiterated to Fox News' Sean Hannity on Wednesday that he'd been close to a "denuclearization" deal with Russia during his first term.
"I was dealing with Putin about the denuclearization of Russia and the United States. And then we were going to bring China along on that one. I was very close to having a deal. I would have made a deal with Putin on that denuclearization. It's very dangerous and very expensive, and that would have been great, but we had a bad election that interrupted us."
The Defense Department now expects that China will have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads, a near-doubling of the estimated 600 they possess right now.
In a speech on Jan. 17, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that "amid a ‘hybrid war’ waged by Washington against Russia, we aren’t seeing any basis, not only for any additional joint measures in the sphere of arms control and reduction of strategic risks, but for any discussion of strategic stability issues with the United States."
But Putin, in an address on Monday, struck a more diplomatic tone: "We see the statements by the newly elected president… about the desire to restore direct contacts with Russia. We also hear his statement about the need to do everything possible to prevent World War III. We, of course, welcome this attitude."
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said of Trump's comments at a news conference on Wednesday: "China's development of nuclear weapons is a historic choice forced to be made. As a responsible major country, China is committed to the path of peaceful development and friendly cooperation with all countries in the world."
Experts argue Russia is using its leverage over nuclear arms control as a means for the U.S. agreeing to favorable terms to end the war with Ukraine.
"Russians are ‘me first’ painstaking negotiators, and what they're doing in this case, is they're clearly laying a bit of a trap," said John Erath of the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.
"It makes sense dangling arms control, which they perceive as something that we want, in front of us and saying, ‘Oh, by the way, we'll talk about reducing nuclear weapons,’ as an incentive to get us to throw the Ukrainians under the bus."
But whether Trump was revealing a policy priority or speaking on a whim with the Davos comments is anyone’s guess.
The president took heat during his first term for meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un to discuss nuclear reduction. That effort fell apart, and Trump resorted to threatening to rain "fire and fury" on North Korea.
"I think he's very sensitive to the dangers of nuclear war, and realizes that in many ways, we're closer to that today than we have been in many, many decades," said George Beebe, a director at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
One thing most experts agree on is that the U.S. nuclear program is expensive and outdated. With some 3,700 warheads in its arsenal, the U.S. is expected to spend $756 billion to store and maintain its nuclear weapons between 2023 and 2032.
"Regardless of reductions, however, the administration and Congress must continue modernizing and ensuring the reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal while eliminating excessive spending where possible," said Andrea Stricker, deputy director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's nonproliferation program.
Arms experts admit that Russia has cheated on arms treaties, but U.S. intelligence capabilities have grown to ensure compliance.
"We've done it throughout the Cold War to varying degrees, and I think we've gotten better and more capable in our intelligence community of monitoring compliance with these sorts of things. So that is certainly a feasible approach to take," said Beebe.
But China and Russia aren’t the only U.S. adversaries with nuclear weapons. North Korea is estimated to have an arsenal of 50 nuclear warheads, Iran is on the precipice of enriching uranium to potent enough levels for a bomb.
"Before engaging in arms control talks, Washington needs a strategy for how it will simultaneously deter two peer nuclear competitors, Russia and China, which could combine forces with states like North Korea and Iran to attack or coerce the United States," said Stricker.
In the four decades between the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan in 1945 and the first arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia, the world was on edge as the two superpowers raced to claim the world's largest arsenal. In 1987, Washington and Moscow signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which led to the dismantling of thousands of bombs.
But over the years, the U.S. and Russia lost their monopoly on civilization-ending weapons: now nine countries are nuclear-armed, rendering bilateral treaties less and less effective.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, is taking aim at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and, according to senior congressional sources, moved to seize control of the independent agency over the weekend.
The senior congressional sources told Fox News that more than 50 senior USAID staff members were placed on administrative leave and subjected to a gag order, meaning they were not allowed to communicate with anyone outside the agency without approval.
Signs were also removed from USAID’s headquarters in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., and the DOGE team took over the computer systems, the sources said. USAID is responsible for distributing civilian foreign aid and development assistance to countries around the globe. The agency managed approximately $40 billion in appropriations last year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that the Trump administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after refusing to turn over classified material in restricted areas to DOGE.
After initially being refused access to USAID’s classified information, DOGE eventually gained that access on Saturday, allowing them to see things like intelligence reports, a current and a former U.S. official told the AP.
The DOGE team members lacked high enough security clearance to access the information, so the two USAID security officials – John Voorhees and deputy Brian McGill – believed they were legally obligated to deny access.
On Sunday, Musk took aim at USAID on his social media platform X, writing, "USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die."
He also wrote several other posts about the agency, saying things like, "USAID was a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America" and "USAID is evil."
The latter was in response to a post suggesting USAID helped fund coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, which referred to an interaction posted on Forbes between Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and now former USAID Administrator Samantha Power in April 2023.
ABC News reported that those familiar with USAID were questioning whether the moves at USAID were being made in an effort to move the agency under the State Department, where there could be better accountability.
Last week, at least 56 USAID officials were placed on administrative leave with full pay and benefits, and several hundred contractors based in Washington and elsewhere were laid off.
The actions came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting on Trump's executive order, paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and USAID.
The 90-day pause has halted thousands of U.S.-funded humanitarian, development and security programs worldwide and forced aid organizations to lay off hundreds of employees because they can't make payroll.
Fox News Digital’s Chris Pandolfo and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump defended his recent tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China while speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday night.
The tariffs, which were authorized in an executive order on Saturday, will go into effect Tuesday. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 25% additional tariff will be levied on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% tariff on imports from China.
During his exchange with reporters, Trump accused Canada of being "abusive" towards the U.S.
"Canada has been very abusive of the United States for many years. They don't allow our banks," Trump claimed. "And you know that Canada does not allow banks to go in, if you think about it. That's pretty amazing if we have a U.S. bank. They don't allow them to go in."
"Canada has been very tough for oil on energy. They don't allow our farm products in, essentially. They don't allow a lot of things in. And we allow everything to come in as being a one way street.
Trump also said that the U.S. subsidizes Canada "by the tune of about $200 billion a year."
"And for what? What do we get out of it? We don't get anything out of it. I love the people of Canada. I disagree with the leadership of Canada and something is going to happen there."
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