Foreign Assistance: Agencies Made Broad Changes, but State Lacked Guidance for Decisions

Filed 2h ago · Via GAO · The Buffoon Desk

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Onion Capers

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Heinrich Vogtherr the Younger · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

GAO found that following executive orders starting January 2025, USAID terminated about 6,780 of its 7,510 awards, worth $79.1 billion in cumulative obligations, while its staff fell from roughly 13,600 worldwide to 241. The State Department absorbed the remaining $52.1 billion in active awards as of July 2025, but could not produce staffing data for the eleven months GAO requested it.

State also lacks documented guidance for making foreign assistance decisions, which GAO warns risks inconsistent, ad hoc choices that could waste money or trigger legal disputes over terminated awards. All nine agencies GAO reviewed cut staff between January 2025 and May 2026, and eight of nine cut foreign assistance funding.

GAO made three recommendations, including that State produce workforce data and document its decision-making guidance. State agreed with the recommendations and said it can generate the data, promising to consider the guidance recommendation for future planning.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

When you take over a neighbor's farm, you'd want to know how many hands are left and where he kept the ledger. State took on $52.1 billion in awards and couldn't say who was minding them for eleven months running. Promising to “consider” writing down how it makes decisions is about like promising to consider reading the map after you've already driven into the creek.

Source: Read the original at GAO → Scored: Onion Capers · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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