As you likely remember, Donald Trump stopped all foreign aid immediately after taking office, as part of his mission to eradicate child hunger (seemingly by eradicating the children, not the hunger). But it isn’t enough to simply pause all new foreign aid. The administration has also set about eliminating aid already purchased by U.S. taxpayers. The most recent example came this week, when the State Department announced plans to destroy 9.7 million dollars worth of contraceptives meant for women in sub-saharan Africa.
The IUDs and other contraceptives won’t expire until 2027 at the earliest, and it will cost US taxpayers $167,000 to destroy them. So what’s the justification for denying 1.4 million women much-needed medical care? The State Department has cited a Trump-imposed rule disallowing U.S. funds to be sent to nonprofits that advocate for safe abortion access, arguing no eligible organizations could be found to take the contraceptives. Hence, they “had” to be destroyed. Now, experts predict the waste will lead to 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions.
In a different time, this was how we thought of Americans meddling in Africa.
Art by C.M. Duffy from Current Affairs Magazine Vol. 7, Issue 34
This is not the first time the Trump administration has incinerated aid or allowed it to expire, wasting millions of dollars in the process. In July, the administration incinerated 500 tons of food meant for Afghan and Pakistani children. The $800,000 worth of high-energy biscuits sat in a warehouse for months as USAID employees urged the State Department to send them to hungry children. They refused. It cost $130,000 to burn the food, which would have fed 1.5 million children for a week. Around the same time, the US allowed 800,000 doses of mPox vaccine to expire; they would have otherwise been sent to Africa.
There’s a sick irony in these incinerations and expirations. The Trump administration justifies not sending contraceptives by saying they may be used by nonprofits who support abortion, this leads to more abortions. The administration cuts USAID resources to prevent waste, this leads to hundreds of tons of food wasted. It does not seem to matter when the administration’s policies directly contradict their stated aims; the only constant is cruelty.
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