The Department of Government Agency led by Elon Musk on Tuesday reduced an entire government agency to a single employee amid its efforts to cut down on the exchequer's spending.
Now, Trump loyalist Peter Marocco is the sole staffer and head of the Inter-American Foundation, an independent development agency.
'The Inter-American Foundation, an agency whose primary action was to issue federal grants ($60million budget), has been reduced to its statutory minimum (1 active employee),' DOGE posted on X.
Who is Peter Marocco?
A staunch Trump ally and based in Dallas, Peter Marocco is a returning political appointee from the US president's first term. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month gave Marocco power to review and dismantle the programmes run by USAID. He made headlines four years ago when he and his wife Merrit Corrigan allegedly broke into the Capitol building through a broken window on January 6, 2021.
What is the role of Inter-American Foundation?
The foundation was set by the US Congress in 1969 in order to award grants to Caribbean and Latin American nations for localised development. It has issued around 5,800 grants worth over $945 million for 425 projects between 1972 and 2024.
The cancelled grants include$903,811 for alpaca farming in Peru, $364,500 to reduce social discrimination of recyclers in Bolivia, $813,210 for vegetable gardens in El Salvador, $323,633 to promote cultural understanding of Venezuelan migrants in Brazil, $731,105 to improve marketability of mushrooms and peas in Guatemala, $677,342 to expand fruit and jam sales in Honduras, $483,345 to improve artisanal salt production in Ecuador and $39,250 for beekeeping in Brazil.
The White House had earlier fired the agency's president and CEO Sara Aviel and terminated the agency's bipartisan board of directors.
Inter-American Foundation is not the only agency whose role has been reduced. The US Institute of Peace, the Presidio Trust and the US African Development Foundation have also been impacted.
