Shipping containers full of antibiotics that save lives and antipalúdico medications are carried out in the port of Sudan, where they sit in limbo. Essential medications are expiring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a government contractor with liquidity problems was forced to close the air conditioning. Instead, millions of soy pounds grown in the United States for refugee fields abroad.
The mission of President Donald Trump to return to the United States Agency for International Development, a government organization responsible for relieving world poverty and providing humanitarian relief, has paralyzed efforts to distribute essential food, medicine and other supplies to save in Everyone, according to non -profit organizations, agricultural industry of the agricultural industry. federal groups and legislators.
The 90 -day freezing of the administration in foreign aid, a stop work order to review the agency’s operations and the abrupt closure of the USAID headquarters have stagnated the aid distribution system, despite the statement of the administration that “humanitarian assistance that will save life.”
USAID offers billions of dollars in humanitarian aid abroad, funds that defenders say that it provides a critical lifeguard to more than 100 countries only a small fraction of the general federal budget. It is not clear how much money in the aid is linked or how long the pause can last.
The future of the agency is now deeply uncertain; Trump has seized him as part of his mission to radically remodel the federal government, saying that he was “directed by a lot of radical crazy”, and the agency’s expenses and staff must be examined. The State Department took control of Usaid this week.
There are layers of problems. The process to request a humanitarian exemption is new and mired in confusion and delays. According to non -profit groups, it is not clear how the administration is defining the help of “lifeguards” that can continue despite freezing, or if the attractions in the release of funds are intentional.
“For more than a week, essential programs and products have been arrested such as food and medicine,” said Tom Hart, president and CEO of Interaction, an alliance of non -governmental organizations based in the United States, many of which depend of federal aid to finance your work. “That is a mass waste of money from taxpayers and good will, as well as the devastating humanitarian impacts on people in need.”
Even the help groups that have received exemptions to distribute HIV medications that save lives have not been able to withdraw funds from the federal government’s payment system, which hinders their ability to distribute the medication, he said.
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Some shipping containers full of aid materials that are already on their way to their destinations are being diverted to warehouses and retained in ports in the US and abroad, trapped in confusion, according to groups of the agricultural industry.
That includes around 33,000 metric tons of soybeans and soybeans used to treat severe malnutrition in East Africa and other regions, according to Gena Perry, who leads a human health program for the American Association of Soybean, a commercial group of industry .
“There is a size for emergency feed, so it is supposed to flow, yes?” Joe Cramer, director of the Michigan Bean Commission, who represents national beans producers said. But he said that has not been happening. “There is a freezing in sending anything,” he said.
The confusion about the delivery of essential food and medicine has generated rare criticism of Republican legislators, as well as the Democrats.
“I urge @Secrubio to distribute the $ 340 million in food cultivated in the United States currently stagnant in US ports to reach those in need,” Senator Jerry Moran wrote, Republican of Kan. Save help perishes. “
Senator Bill Cassidy, R-LA.
“It is a republican initiative, it is Pro-Vida, Proamerica and the most popular American program in Africa,” Cassidy wrote in X. “There is even an exemption that recognizes it, but they told me that drugs are still celebrated in clinics in Africa. This must be reversed immediately!
The State Department did not respond to a request for comments. Moran and Cassidy spokesmen said there were no updates.
The vertiginous effort to hinder USAID has led many humanitarian groups to suspend their work completely. Others have reduced services while fighting to remain financially solvent, since Usaid has stopped payments, including those of the services already provided.
A main leader of a humanitarian organization said that his group was owed almost $ 50 million from the USAID for the work completed in December and January.
“We have essential medications that rot in warehouses in the RDC because we cannot operate the air conditioning,” said the staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of remuneration. “We cannot continue in front of money.”
The group also said that it had antibiotics worth $ 500,000, antipalúdico medications and other essential medications that are currently attacked in the port of Sudan due to the Trump administration’s stop order.
Hart, the CEO of Interaction, corroborated the group’s account.
Kaleb Brownlow, former main advisor to USAID, said there could be serious health implications to suddenly stop medication such as HIV antiretrovirals, including higher viral loads and the development of medication resistance.
“There are more viral particles that circulate its body, which causes an impact on their own being, but it also means that it can spread the disease and increase the probability of transmission,” said Brownlow, who was among the hundreds of USAID workers who were dismissed. last week.
Brownlow described his last days of work as a “complete struggle” when colleagues tried to redirect HIV, malaria and tuberculosis medication to warehouses around the world.
“There was no attempt to eliminate this, this was just a complete abandonment,” Brownlow said.
CORRECTION (February 4, 2025, 7:14 PM ET): an earlier version of this article indicated the first name of a former USAID Senior advisor. He is Kaleb Brownlow, no Karl Brownlow.
