With 1,100 metric tons of emergency food rations nearing expiry in a US government warehouse in Dubai after President Donald Trump’s aid freeze, it took a warning of “wasted tax dollars” for a top US official to eventually agree to a deal for the supplies to be used, sources told Reuters.
The deal saved 622 metric tons of the energy-dense biscuits in June, but 496 metric tons, worth $793,000 before they expired this month, will be destroyed, according to two internal US Agency for International Development memos reviewed by Reuters, dated May 5 and May 19, and four sources familiar with the matter.
The wasted biscuits will be turned into landfill or incinerated in the United Arab Emirates, two sources said. That will cost the US government an additional $100,000, according to the May 5 memo verified by three sources familiar with the matter.
The delays and waste are further examples of how the freeze and then cutbacks, which led to the firing of thousands of USAID employees and contractors, have thrown global humanitarian operations into chaos.
A spokesperson for the State Department, which is now responsible for US foreign aid, confirmed in an email to Reuters that the biscuits would have to be destroyed. But they said the stocks were “purchased as a contingency beyond projections” under the administration of former President Joe Biden, resulting in their expiration.
Trump has said the US pays disproportionately for foreign aid, and he wants other countries to shoulder more of the burden.
His administration announced plans to shut down USAID in January, leaving more than 60,000 metric tons of food aid stuck in stores around the world, Reuters reported in May.
The food aid stuck in Dubai was fortified wheat biscuits, which are calorie-rich and typically deployed in crisis conditions where people lack cooking facilities, “providing immediate nutrition for a child or adult,” according to the UN World Food Program.
The WFP says 319 million people are facing acute levels of food insecurity worldwide. Of those, 1.9 million people are gripped by catastrophic hunger and on the brink of famine, primarily in Gaza and Sudan.
