Latest news with #MichaelRigas
Al Jazeera
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
USAID food for nearly 30,000 hungry kids to be destroyed: Official
Food intended to feed 27,000 starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan will soon be incinerated in the wake of President Donald Trump's closure of the United States' aid agency. A senior US official on Wednesday said nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits, to be used as emergency food for malnourished young children, expired this month while sitting in a warehouse in Dubai. Under questioning by lawmakers, Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary of state in charge of management, tied the decision to the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which closed its doors on July 1. 'I think that this was just a casualty of the shutdown of USAID,' Rigas said, adding that he was 'distressed' that the food went to waste. Aid officials managed to save 622 tonnes of the energy-dense biscuits in June – sending them to Syria, Bangladesh and Myanmar – but 496 tonnes, worth $793,000 before they expired this month, will be destroyed, according to two internal USAID memos reviewed by Reuters, dated May 5 and May 19, and four sources familiar with the matter. The wasted biscuits will be sent to landfills or incinerated in the United Arab Emirates, two sources said. That will cost the US government an additional $100,000, according to the May 5 memo verified by three sources familiar with the matter. Trump has said the US pays disproportionately for foreign aid, and he wants other countries to shoulder more of the burden. His administration announced plans to shut down USAID in January, leaving more than 60,000 tonnes of food aid stuck in stores around the world, Reuters reported in May. The food aid stuck in Dubai was fortified wheat biscuits, which are calorie-rich and typically deployed in crisis conditions where people lack cooking facilities, 'providing immediate nutrition for a child or adult', according to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, said lawmakers had specifically raised the issue of the food with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March. In May, he promised lawmakers that no food aid would be wasted. 'A government that is put on notice – here are resources that will save 27,000 starving kids, can you please distribute them or give them to someone who can? 'Who decides, no, we would rather keep the warehouse locked, let the food expire, and then burn it?' Rigas said that the US remained the world's largest donor, and he promised to learn further details about the biscuits. 'I do want to find out what happened here and get to the ground truth,' he said. The US is the world's largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38 percent of all contributions recorded by the UN. It disbursed $61bn in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data. The Trump administration notified Congress in March that USAID would fire almost all of its staff in two rounds on July 1 and September 2, as it prepared to shut down. In a statement on July 1 marking the transfer of USAID to the State Department, Rubio said the US was abandoning what he called a charity-based model and would focus on empowering countries to grow sustainably. The WFP says 319 million people have limited access to food worldwide. Of those, 1.9 million people are gripped by catastrophic hunger and on the brink of famine, primarily in Gaza and Sudan.
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Watch live: State Department official testifies before Senate on 2026 budget request
Deputy Secretary of State Michael Rigas will testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday afternoon on the State Department's fiscal 2026 budget request. The hearing comes just days after the Trump administration began its plan to layoff 1,300 employees amid its reorganization efforts. The decision has drawn criticism from Democrats and former diplomats alike that say the move risks national security. 'For the State Department to become an effective instrument of American Foreign policy, we must reform and streamline our institution,' Rigas, who handles management and resources, said in his prepared testimony. The hearing also follows the dismantling of the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) earlier this month. The actions come as part of the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) efforts — with the support of President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — to cut down on 'waste, fraud and abuse' within the federal workforce. The event is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. EDT. Watch the live video above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
2 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Watch live: State Department official testifies before Senate on 2026 budget request
Deputy Secretary of State Michael Rigas will testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday afternoon on the State Department's fiscal 2026 budget request. The hearing comes just days after the Trump administration began its plan to layoff 1,300 employees amid its reorganization efforts. The decision has drawn criticism from Democrats and former diplomats alike that say the move risks national security. 'For the State Department to become an effective instrument of American Foreign policy, we must reform and streamline our institution,' Rigas, who handles management and resources, said in his prepared testimony. The hearing also follows the dismantling of the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) earlier this month. The actions come as part of the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) efforts — with the support of President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — to cut down on ' waste, fraud and abuse ' within the federal workforce. The event is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. EDT.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
US state department announces plan to lay off nearly 15% of its domestic staff
The US state department has announced that it plans to move forward with mass layoffs as part of the most significant restructuring of the country's diplomatic corps in decades. Officials say the cuts will align their mission with Donald Trump's vision of America first. The layoffs, which are commonly called reductions in force (or RIFs), along with voluntary redundancies, will affect nearly 15% of the state department's domestic staff. A senior state department official said that was close to 1,800 people. The restructuring will also see several hundred bureaus merged or eliminated entirely. The department advises the president and leads the US in foreign policy issues. The state department went forward with the layoffs, which were long expected, after the supreme court sided this week with the Trump administration against a federal judge's hold on plans for mass government firings that could affect hundreds of thousands of federal employees. 'In the coming days, the department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force. First and foremost, we want to thank them for their dedication and service to the United States,' read a memo attributed to Michael Rigas, the deputy secretary for management and resources, announcing the layoffs. State department officials said they wanted to eliminate redundant positions and agencies, noting that there were three offices at the state department managing sanctions policy, and that other offices had 'proliferated' under Bill Clinton during the post-cold war era. 'It was looking at what are the functions that are redundant, are overlapping or are no longer aligned with the president's foreign policy priorities in a post-cold war world,' said a senior state department official who briefed reporters on the restructuring. 'In an era of great power competition, what should a state department look like?' The changes will empower regional bureaus by creating a simpler chain of command, the officials said. That is also likely to empower political appointees, making the unwieldy state department bureaucracy easier for the Trump administration to manage. 'A lot of this covers redundant offices and takes some of these cross-cutting functions and moves them to the regional bureaus and to our embassies overseas, to the people who are closest to where diplomacy is happening,' the official said. Some bureaus focusing on immigration and democracy promotion will see their missions significantly altered under a Trump administration that has been skeptical of traditional American diplomacy abroad. For instance, the bureau of population, refugees and migration, which previously helped facilitate legal immigration into the United States, would instead be reformed to include an office of remigration to facilitate deportations. The officials declined to discuss plans for the RIFs, saying that they wanted the employees 'to hear from the department first, just for their own dignity'.
Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
State Department to axe 1,800 employees
The State Department will move to layoff nearly 2,000 employees on Friday as it begins its reorganization plan. An internal memo circulated Thursday evening by Michael Rigas, deputy secretary of management and resources, announced that domestic employees affected by the reduction in force (RIF) would be notified "over the coming days." Approximately 1,800 people will be affected, Fox News has learned. The RIF notices plus voluntary departures under the Trump administration amount to a 15% work force reduction. "The departments, bureaus, offices and domestic operations have grown considerably over the last 25 years, and the resulting proliferation of bureaus and offices with unclear, overlapping or duplicative mandates have hobbled the department's ability to rapidly respond to emerging threats and crises or to effectively advance America's affirmative interests in the world," a senior State Department official said. The official added that there are "more than 700 domestic offices for 18,000 people." "A lot of this, as we said, covers redundant offices and takes some of these cross-cutting functions and moves them to the regional bureaus and to our embassies overseas, to the people who are closest to where diplomacy is happening, to empower them with the resources and authorities they need to be able to carry out the President's foreign policy." State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce warned on Thursday the agency would move quickly after the Supreme Court stayed the lower court's injunction blocking the administration from implementing widescale force reductions across federal agencies. A senior official said there are currently no plans for overseas closures of embassies and outposts. They added the State Department will work to preserve the dignity of affected workers. "We're going to work to preserve the dignity of federal workers," the official said. "We want to be sensitive to that process and make sure people have the resources they need … and make sure everyone is treated with dignity."
