Behind the Scenes at USAID

Nicholas Enrich, a former top global health official at USAID, recounts the rapid dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development under the 2025 Trump administration. In his book *Into the Woodchipper*, Enrich details how an executive order on Inauguration Day 2025 froze foreign assistance, followed by the aggressive actions of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which systematically dismantled USAID with no regard for its mission or expertise. Enrich describes being left as the sole senior official after the removal of 60 career leaders, and his growing moral crisis as he was pressured to sign off on illegal and life-threatening decisions, including the destruction of medical supplies and termination of life-saving programs. He ultimately became a whistleblower, filing a disclosure that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. By July 2025, USAID was effectively shuttered, with 16,000 federal employees and 280,000 contractors laid off. The agency’s functions were absorbed into the State Department, leading to operational chaos and a loss of institutional knowledge. Enrich argues that the damage was not due to inefficiency but to ideological sabotage by unqualified actors, and he calls for a political and moral reckoning to restore USAID as a symbol of American generosity and global leadership.