Trump restoring some foreign aid programs

The Trump administration on Tuesday claimed foreign aid programs that were cut in error would be restored.

“There were a few programs that were cut in other countries that were not meant to be cut that have been rolled back and put into place,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters at a briefing. 

Her comments came hours before the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned of starvation risk for individuals in war-torn regions after the White House suspended a significant number of food assistance programs. 

The U.S. was the largest funder of the WFP, providing $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion in donations to the world’s largest food aid provider last year, The Associated Press reported. After intense lobbying from U.N. officials, funding for food programs in Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador is expected to be restored, officials from the embattled U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said, per the outlet.

Earlier Tuesday, WFP posted on social platform X that the organization is “deeply concerned by recent notifications from the US administration indicating that funding for emergency food assistance in 14 countries has been terminated.”

“If implemented, this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” they added. “We are in contact with the US administration to seek clarification and to urge for continued support for these life-saving programmes.”

Bruce acknowledged during the press briefing that some programs were cut over concerns about terrorists potentially benefiting from American taxpayer dollars.

“What is the story here is that the largest group of World Food Programme awards terminated were in Yemen and Afghanistan through an executive order that was issued based on concern that the funding was benefiting terrorist groups, including the Houthis and the Taliban,” she explained.

“These concerns with U.N. funding have been documented and discussed for years, which is why USAID paused all food assistance in northern Yemen through WFP, specifically to mitigate any interference by the Houthis, and has intermittently suspended food assistance across Afghanistan to mitigate Taliban interference,” Bruce added.

Under the direction of White House adviser Elon Musk, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) implemented cuts to a number of programs supported by USAID. In early March, a DOGE staffer, Jeremy Lewin, was appointed to the role of chief operating officer and deputy administrator for policy and programs at the agency.

Lewin is credited for asking staff to reverse the terminations to food aid programs in an internal email.

“Sorry for all the back and forth on awards,” Lewin said on Tuesday in an internal email obtained by Reuters. “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.”

The renewal of programs comes after President Trump signed an executive order in January that ordered a freeze of all U.S. foreign aid while the administration determined which programs were not aligned with his “America First” foreign policy vision. 

In an announcement in February, the White House said more than 90 percent of USAID’s foreign contracts would be gutted — along with $60 billion in global aid worldwide. In March, the administration notified the remaining employees at the agency that they would be terminated, and that the agency would merge with the State Department.

The actions sparked a legal battle and pushback from legal experts, advocates and lawmakers alike.