US updates: USAID puts staff on 'administrative leave'

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that the United States will keep funding international aid projects, but only after a "bottom-up" review.

Speaking on a visit to Guatemala just two days before most US Agency for International Development (USAID) staff are set to be placed on administrative leave, Rubio said:

"Our preference would have been to do this in a more orderly fashion from the top down, but we had no cooperation. We are now going to have to work from the bottom up, instead of the top-down, to identify which programs should be specially designated and therefore exempted."

Rubio said that all future projects would be assessed on whether they "make us safer, stronger and more prosperous" and whether they "align with United States foreign policy" under President Trump.

"This is not a charity. These are not private funds. This is American taxpayer funds. We have an obligation to spend it wisely," Rubio said.

A second federal judge has blocked Donald Trump's plan to curtail US birthright citizenship, calling citizenship a "most precious right."

US District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a nationwide preliminary injunction, siding with immigrant rights groups and pregnant women who argued their children were at risk of being denied citizenship.

"Today, virtually every baby born on US soil is a US citizen upon birth," Boardman said.  "That is the law and tradition of our country. That law and tradition are and will remain the status quo pending the resolution of this case," she added

The US Justice Department requested 60 days to respond but did not indicate if they would appeal. 

This order provides longer-term relief than an earlier 14-day pause by another federal judge.

Last week, US District Judge John C. Coughenour ruled that the president's attempt to deny citizenship to children born in the US was "blatantly unconstitutional."

"I am having trouble understanding how a member of the bar could state unequivocally that this order is constitutional," Coughenour told a Justice Department lawyer defending the order. "It just boggles my mind."

If US President Donald Trump slaps tariffs on the European Union (EU), the bloc could respond by excluding US firms from public procurement, imposing counter-tariffs or enforcing market restrictions, top EU parliamentarian Bernd Lange told DW on Wednesday. 

Lange said Trump is "using tariffs as a politically coercive instrument" and insisted the EU was "ready to negotiate or defend [its] interests."

"We have a really big box of possible measures to react if necessary," Lange, who chairs the European Parliament's trade committee, said.

Asked by DW whether the EU would consider targeting big tech in retaliation to possible future tariffs, Lange said: "It could be tax, it could be tariffs, it could be exclusion from public procurement, it could be market restriction. So it's a big basket of measures, and we really have the freedom to choose."

President Trump has said his administration will "definitely" impose tariffs on the EU after complaining about a trade deficit between the US and Europe. The US president initially said the trade deficit amounted to "over $300 billion" — then on Monday stated it was $350 billion.

Lange rejected those figures. "We have a surplus towards the United States, a little bit under $200 billion. But Mr. Trump never recognizes we have a deficit in services, around about $100 billion. So in total, the [EU] surplus is not so big."

The center-left German lawmaker told DW in Brussels on Wednesday that the EU was "starting the dialogue" with Washington to "find some measures to reduce the deficit in goods." Lange said buying more US liquified natural gas, purchasing more military equipment or reviewing current tariffs on car imports could be areas for negotiation

Canadian business and labor leaders will meet in Toronto on Friday, outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

The Canada-US. Economic Summit comes amid tensions between the two countries, after Trump announced tariffs on the US' northern neighbor, only to, hours later, pause them for 30 days.

In a statement on Wednesday, Trudeau's office said the summit would be "an important opportunity to build a long-term prosperity agenda for Canada; one that is resilient, that breaks down barriers between provinces and territories, and that is diversified in global trade."

"The Canada-US Economic Summit is Team Canada at its best," Trudeau said. "We are bringing together partners across business, civil society, and organized labor to find ways to galvanize our economy, create more jobs and bigger paychecks, make it easier to build and trade within our borders, and diversify export markets. We want businesses, investors, and workers to choose Canada."

The US Post Service (USPS) on Wednesday backtracked on a decision to suspend incoming parcels from Chinaand Hong Kong, after fears of major trade disruptions.

The decision to suspend packages arriving from China and Hong Kong was a consequence of tariffs Trump imposed on China, which came into effect on Tuesday.

Alongside the tariffs, Trump also slashed a duty-free exemption for low value packages, many of which come from Chinese-founded online retailers Shein and Temu.

On Wednesday, the USPS said it was working with Customs and Border Protection to put in place "an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery."

US Vice President JD Vance is due to attend next week's Munich Security Conference, Berlin said on Wednesday.

The conference, scheduled to take place on February 14-16, is due to be attended by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, days before German elections.

Scholz's spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Vance was attending the conference, which annually takes place at the Bayerischer Hof hotel, but stopped short of confirming he will meet Scholz, only saying they will "of course" meet if time allowed.

Vance's visit to Germany comes shortly after Trump's inauguration and amid friction with his close advisor Elon Musk, who had expressed support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party,prompting wide political condemnation in Berlin, including from Scholz.

The US Postal Service (USPS) said it was temporarily suspending parcels arriving from China and Hong Kong, after Trump added tariffs on China over the weekend.

The suspension of parcels originating from China will take place "until further notice," the USPS said.

China's Foreign Ministry urged the US in a Wednesday news briefing "to stop politicizing trade and economic issues and using them as tools, and to stop the unreasonable suppression of Chinese companies."

Alongside the tariffs, Trump also slashed a duty-free exemption for low value packages. The "de minimis" exemption allowed the entry of goods valued at $800 (approximately €768) or below into the US without paying duties or certain taxes.

US officials have criticized the exemption for causing a surge in shipments, particularly from Chinese-founded online retailers Shein and Temu.

Trump justified the new tariffs and the cancellation of de minimis, saying Beijing was not doing enough to halt the flow of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the US.

Chelsey Tam, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, told the Reuters news agency that in 2024, 4 million de minimis packages were arriving on a daily basis.

The halt in parcels is also expected to impact US online retail giant Amazon, which has a large seller base in China.

Mexico's foreign minister has said his country would prefer to receive migrants the US is deporting, vowing not to allow them to be sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Foreign Minister Juan Ramon de la Fuente said that Mexico already sent a diplomatic note to the US embassy expressing its desire to receive any migrants and not have them sent to Guantanamo Bay.

The minister's statements came as the US began on Tuesday sending detained migrants to the naval base, with the first military aircraft arriving in Guantanamo Bay. Trump has vowed to expand the site to hold up to 30,000 migrants.

China has called on the US to engage in dialogue over the 10% tariffs Trump has imposed on China goods. 

Beijing responded in kind on Tuesday, slamming various US goods with tariffs of up to 15%.

But on Wednesday, Chinese authorities stressed that dialogue was needed.

"What is needed now is not unilateral, additional tariffs but dialogue and consultation based on equality and mutual respect," said Lin Jian, spokesperson at the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Trump said on Tuesday he was in no rush to speak to Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Lin also reiterated Beijing's "strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition" to the tariffs.

He defended the Chinese tariffs, saying they are necessary to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests." 

"There are no winners in a trade war or a tariff war," he added.

Opponents of Trump's recent decisions and orders are planning protests in all 50 states of the US, mostly at state capitols.

A movement opposed to the president's early actions is organizing under the hashtags #buildtheresistance and #50501, which stands for 50 protests, 50 states, one day.

The movement stressed it will not tolerate violence of any kind.

Most protests are due to begin around noon.

"This movement is about more than just one day — it's about standing firm in our beliefs and seeing it through, no matter the challenges we may face. When we support one another, we make our voices louder and more powerful," movement 50501 said.

The US Central Intelligence Agency has offered buyouts to its entire workforce, as it moves to bring its mission closer to Trump's vision of fighting "drug cartels," The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

If true, the move would make the CIA the first intelligence agency to join Trump's voluntary redundancy program for federal employees, as the president strives to shrink the US government.

The CIA is also freezing the appointment of anyone who was given a conditional offer, an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe told WSJ.

The conditional offers could also be rescinded if the applicants fail to meet the qualifications aligning with the agency's new goals, including targeting drug cartels, Trump's trade war and undermining China, the aide reportedly added.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced that all its direct hire personnel will be put on administrative leave worldwide, as President Donald Trump's orders to merge the agency with the State Department come into force.

In a statement on its website late on Tuesday, the agency said it was currently putting together a plan, alongside the State Department, to recall USAID personnel stationed abroad within 30 days.

"The Agency will consider case-by-case exceptions and return travel extensions based on personal or family hardship, mobility or safety concerns, or other reasons," the statement read. This would include dependents' school term schedules, medical needs and pregnancy.

The decision to put staff on leave will exclude "personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs."

"Thank you for your service," said the organization, which has been providing humanitarian assistance worldwide as a form of US soft power since it was established in 1961.

Trump froze foreign aid as soon as he was inaugurated and tasked billionaire Elon Musk, whom he appointed as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with scaling down USAID.

Musk has called USAID "a viper's nest of radical-left marxists who hate America" and has vowed to shut it down.

The agency's website was down during the weekend, and only returned on Tuesday to announce the new measures.

USAID has a workforce of over 10,000, with some two-thirds serving overseas in more than 60 country and regional missions, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).