About 500 tons of emergency food rations are set to be destroyed after months of bureaucratic gridlock under the Trump administration, according to multiple current and former government sources. The high-energy biscuits, bought by USAID near the end of President Biden's term for roughly $800,000, were stored in Dubai and intended for malnourished children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, per the Atlantic. Despite repeated requests by USAID staff to ship the food before it expired, approval never came from new leadership installed after an executive order froze most US foreign aid.
The biscuits, which could've fed about 1.5 million children for a week, will now be incinerated, at a further cost of $130,000 to US taxpayers. The loss is striking, say aid workers, who note that in the past, only small quantities of food have been written off due to natural disasters or other logistical issues, in contrast to the mass disposal now planned. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress in May that food would be delivered before spoiling, but by then the destruction order had been finalized. Although humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and Yemen was cut earlier this year over concerns about aiding terrorists, the administration hasn't explained why food wasn't redirected to other famine-stricken regions, like Sudan.
Reuters reported last month that Afghanistan has been turning to Russia for help in acquiring food for its people amid the Israel-Iran conflict that has been cutting off supplies. Meanwhile, more aid could soon meet a similar fate: USAID's warehouses around the world hold tens of thousands of tons of additional food, much of it purchased and unused. The agency's capacity to distribute humanitarian aid has dwindled amid layoffs, and confusion reportedly reigns over how to handle existing stockpiles. Per Gizmodo, a recent study in the Lancet suggests that USAID funding cuts could lead to 14 million deaths over the next five years, with about a third of those being kids under the age of 5.
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
