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      Trump Appointees Fire 2,000 U.S.A.I.D. Employees and Put Others Worldwide on Leave

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      Trump administration appointees in charge of the U.S. Agency for International Development sent employees an email on Sunday afternoon saying that they were firing 2,000 workers and putting up to thousands of foreign service officers and other direct hires around the world on paid leave starting that night.The only exceptions to the leave would be people working on “mission-critical programs,” as well as “core leadership” and employees supporting “specially designated programs,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The New York Times.The email said appointees running U.S.A.I.D. were firing 2,000 employees based in the United States using a mechanism called “reduction in force.” The mass firings are part of a series of layoffs of agency employees by the Trump administration during a broad effort to halt almost all U.S. foreign aid using a blanket freeze.The moves came after a judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration could proceed with plans to lay off or put on paid leave many agency employees and close down operations overseas, which means forcing employees based abroad to come back to the United States. Some of those employees say they expect to be fired once they return home.The judge, Carl J. Nichols of the Federal District Court in Washington, had been reviewing a lawsuit that aimed to block Trump administration officials from enacting the layoffs at the aid agency, putting people on paid leave and compelling overseas employees to quickly return home.Since late January, Pete Marocco, a State Department political appointee who was a divisive figure in the first Trump administration, has overseen the dismantling of the aid agency, working alongside Elon Musk, the tech billionaire adviser to President Trump who has posted dark conspiracy theories about U.S.A.I.D.Early this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was the new acting administrator of the agency and was appointing Mr. Marocco as his deputy.The email on Sunday said employees taking the “voluntary” route to returning from overseas soon would have their travel paid for by the agency.Last week, the appointees running the agency fired about 400 employees who work as contractors on urgent humanitarian assistance. That action added to an understanding among many employees that Mr. Rubio does not actually support such programs.Late last month, Mr. Rubio promised that “lifesaving humanitarian assistance” programs could continue. But almost no programs have been able to operate because the agency’s payment system does not function, meaning partner groups cannot get funds.Mr. Rubio has said some foreign aid will continue after a 90-day review process, but neither he nor Mr. Marocco, who oversees foreign aid at the State Department, have publicly explained the process, if there is one. More

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      State Department Revises Plan to Buy Armored Teslas

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      Tesla’s name was removed from a State Department document that listed planned vehicle purchases after the existence of the list was reported late Wednesday. The potential award raised questions about why the government was giving a lucrative contract to the company, which is led by Elon Musk, one of President Trump’s most important advisers.A department procurement forecast for 2025 detailed purchases the agency expected to make, including $400 million for armored Tesla vehicles. The document did not specify which Tesla model, but the electric Cybertruck, which has a body of high-strength stainless steel, would be the most suitable.Later on Wednesday, a different version of the procurement document appeared online. It referred to “armored electric vehicles,” omitting any mention of Tesla.Mr. Musk spent more than $250 million to help elect Mr. Trump, who then appointed him as the leader of a cost-cutting initiative that’s been called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.Plans to spend $400 million on Tesla pickups raised eyebrows given that Mr. Musk has been posting almost hourly on X, the social media site he owns, about wasteful government spending.Tesla and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment. On X, Mr. Musk shared a post from a supporter that said a report on the topic by Rachel Maddow of MSNBC was a “hit piece.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Trump Executive Order Calls for ‘Reform’ to the U.S. Diplomatic Corps

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      President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday calling for “reform” to the Foreign Service, America’s corps of professional diplomats, “to ensure faithful and effective implementation” of his foreign policy agenda.It was the latest of several recent moves by Mr. Trump to assert greater control over the federal work force, which the president largely views with a blend of suspicion and hostility. Mr. Trump and his allies believe that left-leaning bureaucrats will work to thwart his agenda and that he should have far more power than past presidents to install proven loyalists throughout the government.To that end, Mr. Trump’s order, titled “One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations,” directs the secretary of state to “implement reforms in recruiting, performance, evaluation and retention standards.” It also directs officials to “revise or replace the Foreign Affairs Manual,” along with “any handbooks, procedures or guidance” governing diplomacy.The executive order also makes explicit the price of defying Mr. Trump’s orders. “Failure to faithfully implement the president’s policy is grounds for professional discipline, including separation,” it says.All foreign policy arms of the government, it adds, must devise “an effective and efficient means” of ensuring that the president’s orders are followed.The executive order would appear to challenge basic and longstanding principles of the Foreign Service: that career diplomats should be hired based on their qualifications and expertise, not their political views, and that dissent should be welcomed and not punished.As part of the federal civil service, professional diplomats enjoy special job protections against partisanship and political retribution. Mr. Trump seems intent on weakening those protections.In an initial statement, the American Foreign Service Association, which represents professional diplomats, said it was still assessing the impact of the order. But the group noted that its members posted around the world “carry out the foreign policy initiatives of the president, regardless of party.”“We hope that any administration would value the expertise and knowledge of the Foreign Service, including its ability to provide advice on foreign policy matters,” the statement said, adding that the group would “always defend the integrity and nonpolitical nature of the Foreign Service so that our members can continue to serve the American people.”Separately, State Department officials are grappling with more proposed cuts to personnel. Some ambassadors have been told this week to present lists of cuts of 10 to 20 percent of employees who are local citizens, said a person briefed on the demands, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.Edward Wong More

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      U.S.A.I.D. Workers Brace for the Worst

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      The thousands of people who work for the U.S. government’s main agency for humanitarian aid and disaster relief have been on the front lines of efforts to fight famine, contain virulent infectious diseases like H.I.V. and Ebola, and rebuild infrastructure in impoverished and war-torn countries.On Friday evening, just hours before the vast majority of them were set to have been suspended with pay or laid off, a court issued a limited, temporary order against the Trump administration’s moves to shut down the agency.The order was a temporary reprieve to approximately 2,700 direct hires of the U.S. Agency for International Development who were on administrative leave or set to be placed on leave by midnight Friday. For the past two weeks, they and the contractors who work for the agency had been in the throes of a collective panic as the Trump administration began to lay off staff and signaled it planned to decimate the agency.But the U.S.A.I.D. work force, and the aid industry that relies in large part on the agency’s funding, is still acutely in limbo. On Saturday, U.S.A.I.D. informed employees affected by the order that employees already on administrative leave would be reinstated until the end Friday, Feb. 14, and that no one else would be suspended with pay during that period, according to a copy of the notice viewed by The New York Times. But those employees could still have to wait for weeks, months, or potentially even longer, for a verdict. The case, which was brought on behalf of unions representing the workers, is expected to go to the Supreme Court, and it is unclear whether the jobs will ever exist again.The Trump administration’s announcement this week that U.S.A.I.D. would dismiss almost all of its contractors and that most Foreign Service officers and other direct hires would be put on indefinite administrative leave set off a panic around the globe, as Americans posted in missions abroad scrambled to dismantle and reassemble their lives.The announcement gave Foreign Service officers just 30 days to depart their posts and return to the United States if they wanted the U.S. government to pay for their relocation, forcing nearly the entire diplomatic staff to plan the sort of swift exit that normally only takes place during coups and wars.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Condemns China’s Harsh Sentence for a Prominent Journalist

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      The sentencing of Dong Yuyu, a former Harvard Nieman fellow, signals that officials consider some exchanges between Chinese citizens and foreigners to be espionage.The State Department has denounced a Chinese court’s sentencing of a prominent journalist, Dong Yuyu, to seven years in prison and said it stood with his family in calling for his “immediate and unconditional release.”A court in Beijing announced the sentence on Friday for his conviction on charges of espionage. Mr. Dong, 62, a former Harvard Nieman fellow, has been held since February 2022, when officers from the Ministry of State Security, China’s main intelligence agency, detained him and a Japanese diplomat while they ate lunch in a restaurant.The officers released the diplomat after an interrogation, but prosecutors put Mr. Dong on trial behind closed doors in July 2023. He is the most prominent journalist imprisoned in mainland China.Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said in a statement on Friday that Mr. Dong’s “arrest and today’s sentencing highlight the P.R.C.’s failure to live up to its commitments under international law and its own constitutional guarantees to all its citizens.” He used the initials of the formal name of the country, the People’s Republic of China.“We celebrate Dong’s work as a veteran journalist and editor, as well as his contributions to U.S.-P.R.C. people-to-people ties, including as a Harvard University Nieman fellow,” Mr. Miller added. “We stand by Dong and his family and call for his immediate and unconditional release.”R. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to China and a former Harvard professor, also issued a statement of condemnation, calling the sentencing “unjust.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden’s Policies Offer a Starting Point for Trump’s Border Crackdown

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      Mr. Trump has criticized the Biden administration for what he calls its lax handling of the border — but it has left him with tools he can use to shut down the border.President-elect Donald Trump has spent the last year railing against the Biden administration’s immigration policies, saying they left the border wide open and risked American security.But actions taken by President Biden in the past year, including a sweeping asylum ban and more streamlined deportation procedures, may make it easier for Mr. Trump to fulfill his promise to shut down the border and turn back migrants as quickly as possible.To be sure, Mr. Biden’s vision for immigration is different from Mr. Trump’s. While the White House has enacted stricter regulations at the border, it has also emphasized legal pathways to enter the country and offered temporary legal status to migrants from certain troubled countries.After promising a more humane immigration policy when he took office in 2021, Mr. Biden was confronted with a worldwide surge in migration that put pressure on the southern U.S. border. By his second year in office, annual border arrests topped 2 million.As chaotic scenes emerged of migrants crowding at the border, Republicans like Mr. Trump argued that the Democrats were unable to govern and protect American cities, and they urged a crackdown on immigration. Republican governors such as Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida sent thousands of migrants by bus and plane to Democratic northern cities to highlight the border crisis.President Biden visiting Brownsville, Texas, in February, where he received an operational briefing from U.S. border officials. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Haiti’s Gang Violence Worsens as FAA Suspends Flights From the U.S.

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      The country’s security situation has deteriorated even further since Monday when at least three planes were shot at, forcing the closure of its main airport.Haitian gang leaders took to social media last weekend and promised trouble.They delivered.“If you are reckless in the streets, you will pay the consequences, as of tomorrow,” Joseph Wilson, a gang leader known as Lanmou Sanjou, said Sunday in a widely circulated recorded message.He spoke for Viv Ansanm — a coalition of gangs with the euphemistic moniker “Living Together” — that has sowed terror in Haiti for the past several months, and vowed that they would be “in the streets.”Within 48 hours, at least three U.S. aircraft had been shot at, forcing the closure of Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and stranding passengers all over the world.The Federal Aviation Administration suspended all U.S. flights to Haiti for 30 days, and American Airlines said it wouldn’t return to the country until at least February. Even United Nations humanitarian flights were grounded.The havoc was not limited to the airport: Dr. Deborah Pierre, a urologist, was shot and killed on Tuesday getting into her car in Port-au-Prince, and her father, a dentist, was wounded, her former boss in South Florida, Dr. Angelo Gousse, said.Doctors Without Borders announced that its employees were pulled over by the police Monday and then tear-gassed by a vigilante mob. Wounded patients they were ferrying in an ambulance — suspected gang members — were killed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blinken Visits NATO Headquarters

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      The U.S. secretary of state met with European allies rattled by the American election results at a critical moment for Ukraine and the alliance.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday at what he called a “critical moment” for Ukraine and the U.S.-led military alliance, as Europe braces for the anticipated upheaval of a new Trump era in Washington.In a trip organized only after last week’s presidential election results made clear that U.S. policy will likely swing dramatically away from President Biden’s lock step support for NATO and Ukraine, Mr. Blinken met with alliance and European officials to help plan for a post-Biden future.Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House in January has deeply shaken Europe’s mainstream political leaders, thanks to his skepticism about the value of NATO, the cost of defending Ukraine, and the wisdom of isolating Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.Once in office, Mr. Trump could move quickly to change U.S. policy on all three fronts — a shift that European leaders fear might leave their countries both less secure from Russian aggression and at an economic disadvantage.Mr. Blinken did not explicitly mention Mr. Trump or last week’s election in his public remarks after meetings at NATO headquarters. But an American leadership change with huge global import was the obvious subtext, as Mr. Blinken stressed the intrinsic value of the alliance.Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, addressed the elephant in the room before sitting down with Mr. Blinken at a Brussels hotel. He said that their meeting offered “an opportunity to coordinate steps” after the U.S. election, noting that Ukraine’s government was speaking “both with the president-elect and his team and also with the outgoing administration.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More