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U.S. President Donald Trump's administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, Reuters reported citing its sources.
Four sources familiar with the plan told Reuters that only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday it was going to put on leave all directly hired USAID employees globally, and recall thousands of personnel working overseas as part of a reorganization program.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said the administration was identifying and designating programs that would be exempted from the sweeping stop-work orders
The administration's goal is to merge USAID with the State Department led by Rubio, who Trump has made acting USAID administrator.
USAID employed more than 10,000 people around the world, two-thirds of them outside the United States, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). It managed more than $40 billion in fiscal 2023, the most recent year for which there is complete data.