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USAID staffers told to stay out of Washington headquarters after Musk said Trump agreed to close it
February 3, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agency’s Washington headquarters on Monday, according to a notice distributed to them, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.
USAID staffers said they also tracked more than 600 employees who reported being locked out of the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership” the headquarters building “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.”
Two government employees who tried to gain access to the USAID offices in the building on Monday morning said they were turned away by security guards, who told them the offices were open but people could not go in. Later in the morning, uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers blocked the lobby of the USAID’s headquarters using yellow tape with the words “do not cross.”
The developments come after Musk, who’s leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with the Republican president’s agreement, said early Monday that he had spoken with Trump about the six-decade U.S. aid and development agency and “he agreed we should shut it down.”
“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk said in a live session on X Spaces early Monday. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”
“We’re shutting it down,” he said.
The white USAID flag still flew on the empty plaza in front of the agency headquarters Monday morning. A State Department staffer stood in front, and he said he just wanted to pay his respects. Staffers said employees earlier Monday had been able to reach other parts of the agency to clear personal belongings from their offices.
Musk, Trump and some Republican lawmakers have targeted the U.S. aid and development agency, which oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in some 120 countries, in increasingly strident terms, accusing it of promoting liberal causes.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection teams, a current and a former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, earlier carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Department, gaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. The Washington Post reported that a senior Treasury official had resigned over Musk’s team accessing sensitive information.
Democratic lawmakers have protested the moves, saying Trump lacks constitutional authority to shut down USAID without congressional approval and decrying Musk’s accessing sensitive government-held information through his Trump-sanctioned inspections of federal government agencies and programs.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-usaid-c0c7799be0b2fa7cad4c806565985fe2
With tariffs, Trump wields leverage and sows disruption like no other US president
Feb. 03, 2025 In short order, President Donald Trump has proved every bit the disrupter he pledged to be in a second term.
He has launched a trade war with the United States’ neighbors and largest trading partners – warning Americans they may feel “some pain,” but if so, it’s “worth the price.” He has allowed ally Elon Musk and his team access to the Treasury Department’s multi-trillion-dollar payment system. He got Venezuela to release U.S. hostages and receive deported migrants, while revoking the protected status of more than 300,000 Venezuelans in the U.S.
And that’s all since Friday. It’s a new day in Washington, as Mr. Trump aggressively pursues an “America First” agenda and smaller government during a second term that’s barely two weeks old.
His three executive orders Feb. 1 imposing tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China, while long promised, shocked the world with their scope and potential economic disruption. The move shows the president embracing the role of economic risk-taker, despite the uncertainties that creates for the global economy, for U.S. leadership, and for his own popularity. The goal, says the White House fact sheet on the new orders, is to bring down the perennially massive U.S. trade deficit, halt illegal immigration via both the southern and northern U.S. borders, and stop fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into the country. China is a major producer and exporter of precursor chemicals used to make the deadly synthetic opioid.
Bringing down inflation was a top Trump campaign promise.
Under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA – a free-trade deal Mr. Trump negotiated during his first term – the three countries’ economies are deeply intertwined, particularly in the agricultural, automotive, and energy industries. But beginning Tuesday, Mexico and Canada both face tariffs of 25% on exports to the U.S., except for a 10% tariff on Canadian energy. China, the world’s second largest economy, faces new U.S. tariffs of 10% – in addition to existing tariffs dating back to Mr. Trump’s first term that are as high as 50%, and that caused hardship for American farmers who required government bailouts.
Canada, in particular, has reacted with hurt and shock. Unlike the Mexico-China connection on fentanyl, a focus of genuine U.S. public concern, policymakers are hard-put to identify what Canada has done “wrong.”
“We have fought and died alongside you during your darkest hours,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday. “We’ve built the most successful economic, military, and security partnership the world has ever seen…. We’re always there, standing with you.”
Mr. Trudeau announced retaliatory tariffs of 25% against the U.S. on food, clothing, and household items.
But Mr. Trump, as president of the richest and most powerful nation on earth, has the most leverage, and he knows it. And he alleges that allies including Canada have taken advantage of the U.S. with “unfair” trade deficits and by failing to spend enough on defense.
It’s not clear how far the president is willing to go. Last week, when he threatened tariffs on Colombia after it refused to accept flights of deported migrants from the U.S., the South American nation quickly backed down.
And Mr. Trump isn’t finished issuing threats. On Friday, he promised new tariffs against Europe, accusing the 27-nation European Union of treating the U.S. “so terribly.” He’s been making noise on social media about EU tariffs for months, saying that he wants Europe to buy more U.S. products, including energy, in an effort to bring down the U.S. trade deficit.
“I don’t think these other countries are likely to accept meaningful changes in policy,” said Larry Summers, former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, on CNN. “Think about what giving in to a bully does. It invites more bullying.”
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2025/0203/trump-tariffs-mexico-canada