WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to reinstate at least six recently cancelled US foreign aid programmes for emergency food assistance, according to six sources familiar with the matter.
The quick reversal of decisions made just days ago underscored the rapid-fire nature of Trump’s cuts to foreign aid. That has led to programmes being cut, restored and then cut again, disrupting international humanitarian operations.
Jeremy Lewin, USAID Acting Deputy Administrator, who has previously been identified as a member of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, asked staff in an internal email to reverse the terminations.
He asked to restore awards to the World Food Programme (WFP) in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador.
The administration also resumed four awards to the International Organisation for Migration in the Pacific region.
“Sorry for all the back and forth on awards,” Lewin said on Tuesday in the internal email.
“There are a lot of stakeholders and we need to do better about balancing these competing interests. That’s my fault and I take responsibility,” he added.
The Trump administration ended life-saving aid programmes this week for more than a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Syria, totalling over $1.3 billion.
According to Stand Up For Aid, an advocacy group of current and former US officials, WFP contracts cancelled on Lewin’s orders last weekend for Lebanon, Syria, Somalia and Jordan totalled more than $463 million.
Many of the terminated programmes had been granted waivers by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio following an initial round of cuts to foreign aid programmes. The State Department said those did not reflect a final decision.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about restoring the awards.
A ‘death sentence’
The decision to restore some aid followed pressure from inside the administration and from Congress, sources said.
The World Food Programme said on Monday that the US notified the organisation it was eliminating emergency food assistance funding in 14 countries, warning: “If implemented, this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation.” The US did not restore aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and to Yemen. Washington has been the largest aid donor to both countries, which have suffered years of devastating conflicts.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday the United States had concerns that WFP funding for Yemen and Afghanistan was benefiting the Houthis and the Taliban.
“There were a few programmes that were cut in other countries that were not meant to be cut that have been rolled back and put into place,” Bruce said, adding that the administration remains committed to foreign aid.
Among the cuts over the weekend were $169.8m for the WFP in Somalia, covering food assistance, nutrition for malnourished babies and children and humanitarian air support. In Syria, $111m was cut from WFP food assistance.
The cuts have been the latest piece of the Trump administration’s drive to dismantle USAID, Washington’s main humanitarian aid agency.
The administration has cancelled billions of dollars in foreign aid since the Republican president began his second term on Jan 20 in an overhaul that officials described as marked by chaos and confusion.
Democrats on the Senate’s foreign relations committee wrote a letter to Rubio on Tuesday regarding plans to restructure the State Department, including by folding in USAID, which they said was “unconstitutional, illegal, unjustified, damaging, and inefficient”.
