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Trump-Era U.S. Aid Cuts Leave 66,000 Tonnes of Food Rotting in USAID Warehouses, Halt HIV Crisis in Eswatini, Impact Kakuma Refugees

12 posts • GPT (4.1 mini)

Updated May 19, 2025, 09:08 PM

A Reuters investigation has revealed that 66,000 metric tonnes of food, sufficient to feed 3.5 million people for a month, remain unused in USAID-managed warehouses across Djibouti, Dubai, and South Africa due to cuts in U.S. humanitarian aid. These funding reductions, initiated during the Trump administration, have led to severe consequences including the halting of HIV crisis interventions in Eswatini and reductions in HIV testing and tuberculosis research in South Africa. The cuts have also impacted refugee support, notably in Kenya's Kakuma camp, where food rations and cash assistance have been reduced, threatening the wellbeing of over 220,000 refugees.

Experts from institutions such as the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Harvard Growth Lab warn that dismantling aid institutions may yield short-term savings but risks long-term destabilization of fragile states and increased geopolitical tensions. Meanwhile, policy analysts advocate for shifting global development strategies away from traditional aid models toward industrial transformation to ensure sustainable progress. The reduction in aid funding is part of a broader trend among Western countries, which may ultimately encourage greater self-reliance among impoverished nations but currently exacerbates humanitarian crises worldwide.

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#Reuters #Djibouti #Dubai #South Africa #Trump #Eswatini #Kenya #Kakuma #University of Massachusetts Amherst #Harvard Growth Lab #Western

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Sources

project-syndicate.org(3)washingtonpost.com(2)zeit.de(2)msf.es

Médicos Sin Fronteras

@MSF_Espana

✂️🔬 Cuts in U.S. funding The United States threatens 39 research centers in South Africa, jeopardizing advances against #tuberculosis and #VIH 👇

Foreign Affairs

@ForeignAffairs

To save global development, policy experts and humanitarians will need to detach it from the aid industry—and anchor it instead in a strategy of industrial transformation, writes @MssZeeUsman.

Project Syndicate

@ProSyn

With donor countries scaling back foreign aid, fragile developing economies risk becoming battlegrounds for proxy wars and great-power rivalries, writes @HarvardGrwthLab’s @ricardo_hausman.