Trump administration says it cut funding to some UN food programmes by mistake
It was reported on Monday that the Trump administration cut funding to WFP emergency programmes helping keep millions alive in 14 countries.
The US State Department said it had reversed an undisclosed number of sweeping funding cuts to UN World Food Programme emergency projects in 14 impoverished countries, saying it had terminated some of the contracts for life-saving aid by mistake.
“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,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
Ms Bruce said she had no immediate information on which countries had US funding for food aid restored after a days-long cut-off. She gave no explanation for how some contracts came to be cancelled in error.
The World Food Programme did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The Associated Press reported on Monday that the Trump administration cut funding to WFP emergency programmes helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the agency and officials who spoke to the AP.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials had pledged to spare emergency food programmes and other life-and-death aid even as the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) dismantled the US Agency for International Development.
All but several hundred of USAid’s thousands of contracts for aid and development programmes abroad have been eliminated. The new cuts had hit some of the last remaining humanitarian programmes run by USAid.
Notices sent over the last week had said US funding for WFP emergency programmes in 14 countries were among about 60 being cancelled in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America and the Pacific Islands “for the convenience of the US Government”.
Those latest terminations were at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top Doge lieutenant who was appointed to oversee the elimination of USAid programmes, according to termination notices sent to partners and viewed by the AP.
The WFP, the world’s largest provider of food aid, had publicly appealed to the US on Monday to reconsider cuts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for food programmes.
“This could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” WFP posted on X.
