GOP lawmakers scramble to protect foreign aid as food relief languishes

As GOP lawmakers in Washington try to protect a key food aid program from the Trump administration’s cutbacks, international humanitarian organizations say the ongoing disruptions in assistance are devastating countries on the verge of famine.

The administration’s move in late January to gut the U.S. Agency for International Development — laying off thousands of workers and freezing funding in more than 100 countries — immediately jeopardized Food for Peace. For more than 70 years, the $2 billion program has purchased surplus commodities from American farmers for distribution overseas.

Late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ordered administration officials to temporarily lift their freeze on U.S. aid and development programs abroad. He alluded to the “shockwave” caused by their action and said they “have not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid … was a rational precursor to reviewing programs.”

Trump and his top adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, have been highly critical of the agency’s work, with both baselessly claiming that USAID is responsible for tremendous fraud.

Despite a State Department waiver for emergency food assistance, those shipments still had been delayed around the world, a USAID inspector general wrote in a report Monday — a day before he was dismissed. The bottleneck, Paul K. Martin wrote, put more than $489 million of food assistance at risk of spoilage or theft as it waited at ports, in transit and in warehouses.

In defending itself in court, Ali noted, the government acknowledged that the waiver process “may have had ‘hiccups.’”

Aid groups had said Thursday that some food deliveries were now moving through shipping channels but that millions more pounds of corn, lentils and pinto beans remained stuck because the agency’s payment system is not functioning.

The waiver for lifesaving assistance in place before the judge’s order was “theoretical” because “the payment system that reimburses partners for expenses they incur is offline,” said Sarah Charles, the former head of USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, which oversaw the Food for Peace program. Some relief agencies are still owed for services rendered in December and January, she added.

At a contentious meeting Thursday at the State Department, the Trump appointee tasked with overseeing USAID — or what is left of it — had assured aid workers and congressional staff that aid payments would resume early next week. But Peter Marocco also said a department review of the agency’s remaining projects was underway, and those that do not “give the president real influence” will be cut, according to a readout of the event obtained by The Washington Post.

A department spokesman did not return a request for comment.

Two Kansas Republicans, Sen. Jerry Moran and Rep. Tracey Mann, are working with other lawmakers to protect Food for Peace by moving it to the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “part of an ongoing effort to save money and increase efficiency,” Moran said in a statement. His proposal has gained widespread support from a number of agricultural groups.

The program, founded in Kansas, was signed into law in 1954 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It has long been championed by the state’s leaders, including former senator Robert J. Dole, and has helped more than 4 billion people in over 150 countries since its inception.

While a source of pride for farmers, Food for Peace has been criticized over the years for various issues, including the potential to undermine agriculture in local countries and exacerbate conflicts in war-torn areas, according to Chris Edwards of the libertarian Cato Institute.

Even if the lawmakers prevail, the program’s ultimate survival is not guaranteed.

Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, pointed to the USDA’s new secretary. Brooke Rollins, the former head of a conservative Texas think tank, was confirmed Thursday.

“What happens if she goes into this office cleaning house?” he asked. “And what about when Elon Musk comes over to USDA? Anything is to be expected at this point.”

Kansas is the country’s biggest grower of sorghum, and millions of bushels of the high-protein grain are backed up in warehouses across the state. Kim Barnes, the chief financial officer of the Pawnee County Cooperative Association, a grain trader in central Kansas, said that he’s storing more than 1.3 million bushels of sorghum because of a market downturn over the last year — a situation that will only worsen with USAID cutbacks.

It’s a shame, he said. “There are still countries that need it.”

On Thursday, a different federal judge extended a block on the Trump administration’s plan to place thousands of USAID employees on leave. Yet with thousands of contractors already fired, the agency’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance could ultimately lose more than 90% of its workforce, Martin, the inspector general, wrote. That outcome raises continued concerns about whether any existing staff can work with locals on the ground to the distribute the commodities, he added.

The temporary gap in supplies has already been “devastating” some countries, said Paul Spiegel, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health and former chief of public health for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees.

“There has already been much damage done that will be difficult to undo,” Spiegel said Friday. “The administration has not always done what they said they would do providing exceptions for humanitarian response, so the question remains: Will they allow funds to go out, or will they simply slow it down and the pain and suffering of all these vulnerable people around the globe will continue?”

Duaa Tarig, who worked as an art curator in Sudan before war broke out, said she personally knew three people who recently had died of malnutrition in her Khartoum neighborhood.

The pattern is familiar. During a 10-day period last year, many died when soup kitchens in the city were forced to shutter for lack of funding, she recounted. Weakened by starvation, individuals succumbed quickly to malaria or dengue fever.

With USAID funding curtailed, more than 80% of those soup kitchens have closed their doors again, she said. Many of those remaining open are unable to afford the lentils they usually buy and are scraping together vegetable soups.

“Everyone, including myself, have lost a lot of weight. Some have lost more than half their body weight. I see the faces of people I used to know and I can’t recognize them — they are just bone and skin,” she said.

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• Houreld reported from Nairobi. Alice Crites contributed.