During an unknown date between January and May, the Trump administration ordered the destruction of 500 metric tons of emergency food intended for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The food took the form of biscuits, highly dense in nutrients, that fulfill the needs of children under the age of five. Had it not been destroyed, the food would have expired on July 15.
The two men responsible for the failure to distribute the food are Pete Marocco, who worked for the first Trump administration, and Jeremy Lewin, an unqualified “law school graduate in his 20s” who worked for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and now works for what remains of USAID and the State Department.
On May 21, Secretary of State Marco Rubio lied to Congress, saying that the food aid would reach its intended destination before expiring. By the time he said this, the order to eliminate the food had already been given.
All aid to Afghanistan and Yemen was suspended due to the Trump administration’s fears of terrorists benefiting from the aid. What the administration has yet to explain is why the food was not redirected to other countries and regions with children suffering from acute malnutrition, such as Sudan and Gaza (the food was stored in the United Arab Emirates).
As a result of this failure to redirect, the food will be destroyed at an additional taxpayer cost of $130,000, on top of the $800,000 already spent on the biscuits. This is despite DOGE’s claims that minimizing government agencies would relief the tax burden on normal Americans. The degradation of USAID and its ability to ship emergency food has also been bad for business.
Last month, the CEOs of the two American companies that make another kind of emergency food for malnourished children both told The New York Times that the government seemed unsure of how to ship the food it had already purchased. Nor, they told me, have they received any new orders.
The Atlantic
This is all undoubtedly good news to adversarial regimes seeking to undermine American soft power.
