Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he is acting administrator of the US Agency for International Development, confirming the de-facto takeover of the humanitarian agency by the State Department, writes CNN.

Rubio said in a letter to lawmakers Monday he had delegated the authority of acting administrator to Pete Marocco, a Trump appointee who served at USAID in the president’s first term and has been accused by aid groups and officials of intentionally dismantling the organization.

Marocco, who is also serving as the State Department’s head of foreign assistance, drafted the directive to freeze almost all foreign aid. One aid official said that Marocco “knows how the system works and is dismantling it at every turn”.

The news came hours after Elon Musk, the world’s richest man charged with overhauling the federal government, said President Donald Trump had signed off on shutting the agency down. Democrats say that it is not legal for the president to shutter a federal agency without consulting Congress.

Rubio, in a letter to the heads of Congress’ committees on foreign affairs and appropriations Monday, said he had authorized Marocco “to begin the process of engaging in a review and potential reorganization of USAID’s activities to maximize efficiency and align operations with the national interest.”

“The Department of State and other pertinent entities will be consulting with Congress and the appropriate committees to reorganize and absorb certain bureaus, offices, and missions of USAID”, he wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by CNN.

Speaking to the press in El Salvador, Rubio said the “functions of USAID” must align with US foreign policy and that it is “a completely unresponsive agency”. Rubio was asked about the arguments that USAID’s work is vital to national security and promoting US interests. “There are things that USAID, that we do through USAID that we should continue to do, and we will continue to do”, he said.

“This is not about ending the programs that USAID does, per se,” he said. “There are things that it does that are good and there are things that it does that we have strong questions about”.

Rubio claimed his “frustration with USAID” went back to his time in Congress. In 2017, the former senator defended the importance of foreign assistance.

“Foreign Aid is not charity. We must make sure it is well spent, but it is less than 1% of budget & critical to our national security,” he wrote in a post on X at the time.