WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump\u2019s administration on Tuesday moved to reinstate at least six recently canceled US foreign aid programs for emergency food assistance, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
\nThe quick reversal of decisions made just days ago underscored the rapid-fire nature of Trump\u2019s cuts to foreign aid. That has led to programs being cut, restored then cut again, disrupting international humanitarian operations.
\nUSAID Acting Deputy Administrator Jeremy Lewin, who has previously been identified as a member of billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency, asked staff in an internal email to reverse the terminations.<\/p>\n
He asked to restore awards to the World Food Programme in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador, five sources familiar with the matter said.
\nThe administration has also resumed four awards to the International Organization for Migration in the Pacific region, two sources familiar with the matter said.
\n\u201cSorry for all the back and forth on awards,\u201d Lewin said on Tuesday in the internal email seen by Reuters. \u201cThere are a lot of stakeholders and we need to do better about balancing these competing interests \u2014 that\u2019s my fault and I take responsibility,\u201d he added.
\nReuters reported on Monday that the Trump administration had ended life-saving aid programs for more than a dozen countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Syria, totaling over $1.3 billion.
\nAccording to Stand Up For Aid, an advocacy group of current and former US officials, WFP contracts canceled on Lewin\u2019s orders last weekend for Lebanon, Syria, Somalia and Jordan totaled more than $463 million.
\nMany of the terminated programs had been granted waivers by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio following an initial round of cuts to foreign aid programs. The State Department said those did not reflect a final decision.
\nThe State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about restoring the awards.<\/p>\n
A \u2018DEATH SENTENCE\u2019
\nThe decision to restore some aid followed pressure from inside the administration and from Congress, two sources said.
\nThe World Food Programme said on Monday that the US notified the organization it was eliminating emergency food assistance funding in 14 countries, warning: \u201cIf implemented, this could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation.\u201d
\nThe US did not restore aid to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and to Yemen, most of which is controlled by Islamist militants of the Iran-backed Houthi movement. Washington has been the largest aid donor to both countries, which have suffered years of devastating war.
\nState Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Tuesday told reporters that the United States had concerns that WFP funding for Yemen and Afghanistan was benefiting the Houthis and the Taliban.
\n\u201cThere 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,\u201d Bruce said, adding that the administration remains committed to foreign aid.
\nAmong the cuts over the weekend were $169.8 million for the WFP in Somalia, covering food assistance, nutrition for malnourished babies and children and humanitarian air support. In Syria, $111 million was cut from WFP food assistance.
\nThe cuts have been the latest piece of the Trump administration\u2019s drive to dismantle USAID, the main US humanitarian aid agency.
\nThe administration has canceled billions of dollars in foreign aid since the Republican president began his second term on January 20 in an overhaul that officials described as marked by chaos and confusion.
\nSenate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats on Tuesday wrote a letter to Rubio regarding plans to restructure the State Department, including by folding in USAID, which they said was \u201cunconstitutional, illegal, unjustified, damaging, and inefficient.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump\u2019s administration on Tuesday moved to reinstate at least six recently canceled US foreign aid programs for emergency food assistance, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The quick reversal of decisions made just days ago underscored the rapid-fire nature of Trump\u2019s cuts to foreign aid. That has led to programs …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":79370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79371,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79360\/revisions\/79371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}