Tens of thousands of tons of food purchased through a federal program to feed hungry people overseas is stuck at a warehouse in Houston’s port after President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid, according to an email from an international food agency and an employee with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The pause comes as the Trump administration moves to dismantle USAID, one of the world’s largest government aid organizations. The organization spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year through its Food for Peace program to distribute surplus crops from American farmers around the globe, according to the Congressional Research Service.

  • MrsDoyle
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    52 minutes ago

    Presumably the farmers got paid for these surplus crops. And if USAID is dismantled, there’ll be no-one buying the coming season’s surplus. Lots of farmers must be feeling nervous. Shipping and port companies will also be hit.

    It’s like when firms lay off workers to save money: those people are also customers, who now don’t have money for new furniture, restaurant meals, a new car, whatever. There’s a ripple effect from “saving money”.

  • blakenong@lemmings.world
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    16 hours ago

    Will the food go to hungry Americans, or will it sit there and rot?

    My bet is it rots, or rots and is then fed to Americans.

  • DrFistington@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    For someone who had already served one term as president, he sure as hell doesn’t seem to understand how fucking ANYTHING in government works. With any luck he’l be figuring out how a feeding tube works soon

    • Saprophyte@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      He spent almost that entire time playing golf. He has no idea what’s going on this time around either.

      • Boozilla
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        10 hours ago

        It’s his Project 2025 guys intentionally dismantling the government and sabotaging whatever they can. They want a theocracy to “save” us from the very chaos they’re creating. It’s all going to their plan. Trump is just the useful idiot figurehead.