“I have no good answer to this question,” said Michael Rigas, the manager responsible for management and staff in the State Department, facing the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. A proof of embarrassment in which the Trump administration is found after revelations of the press according to which 500 tonnes of food intended for children suffering from malnutrition were going to be cremated because they are outdated. A news that falls when the United States revives its international aid drastically.
Pressed by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, Michael Rigas then dropped: “I think it is simply a victim of the closure of the USAID”, the American agency for international development. Then he said he was “afflicted” that food was wasted and promised to “discover what happened”.
According to officials, the United States plans to incinerate these high-energy cookies, intended for emergency food for young children suffering from malnutrition in Afghanistan and Pakistan and whose expiration date was exceeded in July in a Dubai warehouse.
The government “preferred to keep the warehouse closed”
And according to The Atlantic magazine, the United States bought these cookies towards the end of the administration of Joe Biden for around 800,000 dollars. US taxpayers will spend an additional $ 130,000 to destroy them.
Senator Tim Kaine claims to have raised the question to the Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March, and deplored that nothing was done, the government “preferring to keep the warehouse closed, let the food expire, then burn it” rather than distribute it.
After more than six decades, the USAID officially ceased to exist on July 1, the Trump administration having judged that it was not served the interests of the United States. The agency was merged with the State Department. Its closure caused an earthquake in humanitarian circles.
International planed assistance
Since his return to power in January, Donald Trump has set out to cut massively in international aid, removing 83 % of programs abroad from the American Development Agency.
Under the leadership of the White House and the Doge of Elon Musk, the US Congress should also approve budget cuts of almost $ 9 billion this week, including some 8 billion initially intended for international aid. The head of the State Department, however, recalled that the United States remained the first world donor of humanitarian aid.
Michael Rigas also supervised hundreds of layoffs in the State Department as part of the vast campaign to reduce the American president.
“Thanks to chaotic and inept decisions – reduction in funding, staff dismissal, abolition of key programs -, American taxpayers will pay the bill and the children will suffer from hunger,” castigated Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen in plenary session.
