Trump says US disaster relief agency Fema should be ‘terminated’

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) should be eliminated, widening his fight against the federal bureaucracy that he has denounced as a “deep state” working against his interests.

Mr Trump lacks the authority to unilaterally disband Fema as the agency is authorised by Congress and has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support. Such a move would dramatically transform how the US government handles disaster assistance.

“Fema should be terminated,” Mr Trump said on Feb 11 in a post on his social media network, reiterating his belief that shifting disaster response and recovery to individual states would save the government money and be more efficient. 

The US President’s comments are his most direct yet on abolishing Fema. In his post, Mr Trump said Fema “is now under review and investigation”.

His latest broadside against Fema comes after Mr Elon Musk, who Mr Trump handpicked to root out the federal bureaucracy, attacked the agency for sending payments to New York City to house migrants, which the billionaire said defied Mr Trump’s immigration policies. 

Fema is terminating the services of four employees “for circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments”, the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, said on Feb 11 in a statement. The fired workers comprise Fema’s chief financial officer, two programme analysts and a grant specialist, the department said.

The Trump administration has sought to shut down other agencies that have drawn the ire of conservatives, such as the US Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, by putting workers on leave, shuttering offices and suspending payments. Those efforts have triggered lawsuits arguing the moves are illegal. 

Response controversy

The President has long lambasted Fema, casting the agency as an example of how the government under his predecessor, Mr Joe Biden, failed to manage crises. 

Mr Trump attacked the agency’s response to deadly hurricanes that tore through the US south-east in recent months, which became a political flash point in the 2024 election, making unfounded claims that it did not help residents because it had diverted money to undocumented migrants. 

Democrats have said Mr Trump spread misinformation about the US government’s work and complicated efforts to deliver aid to those in need.

During a visit to storm-ravaged communities in North Carolina and wildfire-scorched neighbourhoods in southern California in January – days after his second inauguration – Mr Trump pledged to overhaul Fema and signed an executive order that established a council to review the agency and advise him on the next steps. 

Mr Trump in January floated the idea of

turning over disaster assistance to individual states

rather than having Fema respond, telling Fox News in an interview that he would “rather see the states take care of their own problems” and that “the federal government can help them out with the money”.

Currently, federal disaster assistance includes both grants to state governments and direct payments to survivors. Fema deploys staff and infrastructure on the ground to help with immediate response efforts and longer-term recovery work.

Fema typically is spared from partisan politics and previous US presidents have regularly approved requests to dispatch the agency’s teams and cover certain shares of the cost of disaster response. Republicans and Democrats have long supported the agency, and many recent response efforts have focused on Republican-run states. BLOOMBERG