The Trump administration is placing US Agency for International Development (USAID) direct-hire staffers around the world on leave except those deemed essential, upending the aid agency’s six-decade mission overseas.

A notice posted online Tuesday gives the workers 30 days to return home.

The move had been rumoured for several days and was the most extreme of several proposals considered for consolidating the agency into the State Department.

Other options had included closures of smaller USAID missions and partial closures of larger ones.

Thousands of USAID employees already had been laid off and programmes worldwide shut down after US President Donald Trump imposed a sweeping freeze on foreign assistance.

In the space of a few weeks, Trump's political appointees, including tech tycoon Elon Musk’s budget-slashing team, have dismantled the aid agency despite outcry from Democratic lawmakers.

They have ordered a spending stop that has paralysed US-funded aid and development work around the world, gutted the senior leadership and workforce with furloughs and firings, and closed Washington headquarters to staffers Monday.

Lawmakers said the agency’s computer servers were carted away.

“Spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk boasted on X.

Musk’s teams had taken USAID’s website offline over the weekend and it came back online Tuesday night, with the notice of recall or termination for global staffers its sole post.

The decision to withdraw direct-hire staff and their families earlier than their planned departures will likely cost the government tens of millions of dollars in travel and relocation costs.

Staff being placed on leave include both foreign and civil service officers who have legal protection against arbitrary dismissal and being placed on leave without reason. (AP)