(Washington) The Trump administration was embarrassed on Wednesday after revelations from the press that tons of food intended for children with malnutrition were going to be cremated because they are outdated, at a time when the United States revisits its international aid significantly.
“I have no good answer to this question,” said the manager responsible for management and staff in the State Department, Michael Rigas, questioned on this subject before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
Pressed by the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, he then dropped: “I think he is simply a victim of the closure of the USAID”, the American agency for international development.
He said he was “afflicted” that food be 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.
According to the magazine The Atlanticthe United States bought the cookies at the end of Joe Biden’s administration for around US $ 800,000. US taxpayers will spend an additional $ 130,000 to destroy them.
Senator Kaine said that he had raised the issue with 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, USAID officially ceased to exist on 1is July, the Trump administration having judged that it did not serve the interests of the United States. The agency was merged with the State Department.
Its closure caused an earthquake in humanitarian circles.
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 Commission of Elon Musk, the US Congress should also approve budget cuts this week of almost $ 9 billion, 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.
Mr. Rigas also supervised hundreds of layoffs in the State Department as part of the vast cost reduction campaign of the American president.
“Thanks to chaotic and inept-reduction decisions of funding, staff dismissal, abolition of key programs-, American taxpayers will pay the bill and children will suffer from hunger,” lambasted Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen in full session.
