Roughly 60,000 metric tons of food—enough to feed 3.5 million people for a month—is sitting unused in foreign countries because of the Trump administration’s sudden cut in funding to USAID earlier this year.
According to sources speaking to Reuters, the rations are spread across four warehouses in Houston, Djibouti, Durban, and Dubai and comprise cereals, pulses, and cooking oil. The food, valued at $98 million, was intended for emergency distribution in hunger-stricken regions including Gaza, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Most of it will now end up in incinerators or as animal feed.
Nearly 500 tons of high-energy biscuits in Dubai are set to expire in July, one former USAID official told Reuters. They could have fed 27,000 acutely malnourished children for a month.
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The failure stems from USAID’s rapid dismantling by the Trump administration and a pause on the contracts and funds needed to ship supplies to where they are needed.
“USAID is continuously consulting with partners on where to best distribute commodities at USAID prepositioning warehouses for use in emergency programs ahead of their expiration dates,” a State Department spokesperson said. Internal proposals to release the food remain on hold, awaiting sign-off from the Office of Foreign Assistance, now headed by 28-year-old Elon Musk appointee, Jeremy Lewin.
Navyn Salem, founder of Edesia, a company manufacturing the energy paste Plumpy’Nut, said that her organization is now sitting on $13 million worth of food. She is “hopeful” that a solution will be found soon to get her product to those who desperately need it.
The U.S. is the world’s largest aid donor, accounting for nearly 40 percent of United Nations contributions. Millions are reliant on the provisions it brings. The charity Action Against Hunger has reported that the cuts are already costing lives, with six children starving to death in the DRC alone after it was forced to suspend its operations.
“If a child’s in an inpatient stabilization center and they’re no longer able to access treatment,” said Jeanette Bailey from the International Rescue Committee, “more than 60 percent of those children are at risk of dying very quickly.”
