Forced leave starts for thousands under Trump plan to gut foreign aid agency

Demonstrators rally against President Donald Trump and his ally Elon Musk in Washington, DC (J Scott Applewhite/AP)

Forced leave began worldwide on Friday for most employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), as federal workers’ associations turned to the courts to try to roll orders that have dismantled most of the agency and US- funded aid programmes around the world.

Under Donald Trump’s plan, the agency is to be left with fewer than 300 workers out of thousands.