US restores urgent food aid, except in Afghanistan and Yemen, two of the world’s poorest countries

SMA NEWS – WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump’s administration has reversed new cutoffs in emergency food aid to several nations but maintained them in Afghanistan and Yemen, two of the world’s poorest and most war-ravaged countries, according to the State Department and officials who spoke to The Associated Press.

It marks the latest round of abrupt cancellations of foreign aid contracts run through the US Agency for International Development and equally sudden reversals. The whipsawing moves come as the Republican administration and Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency dismantle USAID and dramatically reduce foreign assistance, asserting that the spending is wasteful and advances liberal causes.

The United States over the weekend sent notices terminating funding for UN World Food Program emergency programs in more than a dozen countries. Aid officials warned that the cuts could threaten the lives of millions of refugees and other vulnerable people, stressing the risks of further destabilizing regions ridden by conflicts.

The State Department confirmed Wednesday that it had reversed those cuts in Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador. It said it would keep the cancellations for Afghanistan and Yemen but left the fate of food aid in six other unidentified nations unclear.

Even in Syria, Somalia and other crisis areas where it had reinstated support for lifesaving food programs, the US would work with the UN to modify its funding “to better align with Administration priorities,” the State Department said by email. It gave no details.

Two USAID officials said Jeremy Lewin, the DOGE associate overseeing the dismantling of the aid agency, ordered the reversal of some of his contract terminations Tuesday, after the AP reported them. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The USAID officials said Lewin sent a note internally expressing regret for the sudden contract terminations and reversals. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others had pledged that the kind of lifesaving aid targeted would be spared.

A United Nations official said the decision to restore funding came after intense behind-the-scenes lobbying of members of Congress by senior UN officials.

The State Department on Wednesday defended some of the new funding cuts, including for Yemen and Afghanistan, saying they were based on “credible and longstanding concerns that funding was benefitting terrorist groups including the Houthis and the Taliban.”

At a briefing this week, department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce cited a US government watchdog’s 2024 finding that department contractors reported paying at least $10.9 million to Afghanistan’s Taliban government in taxes, utility payments and fees.

“Other programs with WFP that were terminated were contrary to an America First agenda and didn’t make America stronger, safer, or more prosperous,” the department said Wednesday.