CAIRO: The Trump administration has reversed sweeping cuts in emergency food aid to several nations while maintaining them in Afghanistan and Yemen, two of the world’s poorest and most war-ravaged countries, officials said Wednesday.
The United States had initially cut funding for projects in more than a dozen countries, part of a dramatic reduction of foreign aid led by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Aid officials warned the cuts would deny food to millions of people and end health programs for women and children.
The administration informed the World Food Program of its reversal on Tuesday, according to two U.N. officials. An official with the U.S. Agency for International Development confirmed that Jeremy Lewin, the Musk associate overseeing the dismantling of USAID, ordered the reversal of some of his weekend contract terminations after The Associated Press reported them. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The WFP said Monday it had been notified that USAID was cutting funding to the U.N. agency’s emergency food program in 14 countries.
Funding has been restored for programs in Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador, according to the USAID official and one of the U.N. officials. The status of funding for six other unidentified countries was not immediately clear.
One of the U.N. officials said the decision to restore funding came after intense behind-the-scenes lobbying of members of Congress by senior U.N. officials.
