Around 319 million people face acute levels of food insecurity around the world, reports the World Food Programme, with the number climbing still. Across Sudan and Gaza, famine is particularly severe. War, natural disasters, conflict, and displacement also threaten conditions.
All that, though, and the U.S. is planning on burning 500 tons of biscuits, according to new reporting from The Atlantic. Packed with nutritional ingredients that can provide immediate nutrition for children and adults, these biscuits are typically used in situations where aid groups are on a time- and resource-crunch, and when kitchens are not yet available or set up. But after being stuck in Dubai for months, these crucial biscuits will soon be sent to the UAE and incinerated. The outlet reported:
Over the coming weeks, the food will be destroyed at a cost of $130,000 to American taxpayers (on top of the $800,000 used to purchase the biscuits), according to current and former federal aid workers I spoke with. One current USAID staffer told me he’d never seen anywhere near this many biscuits trashed over his decades working in American foreign aid. Sometimes food isn’t stored properly in warehouses, or a flood or a terrorist group complicates deliveries; that might result in, at most, a few dozen tons of fortified foods being lost in a given year. But several of the aid workers I spoke with reiterated that they have never before seen the U.S. government simply give up on food that could have been put to good use.
The biscuits were part of the cross-fire (alongside 1,600
workers) when Trump and ex-First Buddy Elon Musk gutted USAID earlier this year, with the latter calling the department a “
criminal organization.” It was a move that shook up a number of aid projects across the board and gridlocked employees into inaction. Since money and aid can’t move without bureaucratic approval, countless requests to approve distributing the food were left unanswered, staffers
told The Atlantic.
Shockingly, things could have been worse. Around 600 (more) tons of biscuits were also headed towards death row before they were saved by a deal back in June, allowing them to be sent to the WFP and distributed before expiration. And that’s really just thanks to some relentless lobbying (and the dangled threat of “wasted tax dollars”). Still, promises were broken. In May, Marco Rubio assured legislators that no food aid would be wasted—words that have come back to bite the Secretary of State in the ass.
It also paints a grim omen for foreign aid. It’s only been a few months since USAID’s Nicholas Enrich sent out a memo detailing the costs and perils ahead, and already, the heat around gutting humanitarian efforts has cooled. Expect worse to come.
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