UN food agency WFP received dozens of US stop work orders despite emergency waiver

By Simon Lewis, Leah Douglas and Lisa Baertlein

The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) was ordered by Washington to stop work on dozens of U.S.-funded grants, according to an email seen by Reuters, that was sent five days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver for emergency food assistance.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) grants, at various stages of progression, are worth tens of millions of dollars and provide food assistance in impoverished countries including Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Haiti and Mali.

The U.S. State Department and the World Food Programme did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Several of the suspended grants are under the Food for Peace Title II program, which spends about $2 billion annually on the donation of U.S. commodities. The program, which makes up the bulk of U.S. international food assistance, is co-administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and USAID.

Just hours after taking office on January 20, Trump ordered a 90-day foreign aid pause so contributions could be reviewed to see if they align with his "America First" foreign policy. The U.S. is the world's largest aid donor.

The State Department then wrote a January 24 "stop work" cable - seen by Reuters - for all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, but said Rubio had given an exemption for emergency food assistance. He also approved a waiver on January 28 for life-saving humanitarian help, defined as core life-saving medicine, medical services, food and shelter.

'FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES'

But on January 29, WFP - whose executive director is American Cindy McCain - received an email, seen by Reuters, from USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance listing dozens of project numbers subjected to a stop work order.

A senior WFP official in Washington responded with a list of clarifying questions, according to the email. In another note, seen by Reuters, the same official raised concerns about the pause in Title II and Commodity Credit Corporation awards.

"The pause in Title II and CCC awards has disrupted WFP's massive food supply chain, affecting over 507,000 metric tons (MT) of food valued at more than $340 million," the WFP official wrote.

The official noted that some of that food was currently en route by sea, more was stored in 23 countries and some was in overland transport. They added that "a substantial quantity of food is currently being loaded at ports like Houston and other locations across the U.S. domestic supply chain."

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"The scale of this disruption underscores the far-reaching consequences of the funding pause on global food assistance efforts. WFP is in the process of analyzing the impact this has on the extremely vulnerable beneficiaries in severe humanitarian contexts that receive this lifesaving assistance," the WFP official wrote.

The Trump administration's effort to slash and reshape American foreign aid is crippling the intricate global system that aims to prevent and respond to famine, according to humanitarian organisations.

USAID has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally. The Trump administration plans to keep fewer than 300 USAID staff out of the agency's thousands of staff.

Trump's incoming U.N. Ambassador Elise Stefanik praised WFP as "a very successful program" when she appeared before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month. She noted that WFP has "significant bipartisan support" in Congress.