Trump administration says it cut funding to some life-saving UN food programs by mistake

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This article was published 08/04/2025 (248 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department said Tuesday that it had rolled back an undisclosed number of sweeping funding cuts to U.N. World Food Program emergency projects in 14 impoverished countries, saying it had terminated some of the contracts for life-saving aid by mistake.

“There were a few programs that were cut in other countries that were not meant to be cut, that have been rolled back and put into place,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.

Bruce said she had no immediate information on which countries had U.S. funding for food aid restored after a dayslong cutoff. She gave no explanation for how some contracts came to be canceled in error.

The World Food Program didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The Associated Press reported Monday that the Trump administration cut funding to WFP emergency programs helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the agency and officials who spoke to the AP.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other administration officials had pledged to spare emergency food programs and other life-and-death aid even as the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development.

All but several hundred of USAID’s thousands of contracts for aid and development programs abroad have been eliminated. The new cuts had hit some of the last remaining humanitarian programs run by USAID.

Notices sent over the last week had said U.S. funding for WFP emergency programs in 14 countries were among about 60 being canceled in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America and the Pacific Islands “for the convenience of the U.S. Government.”

Those latest terminations were at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top DOGE lieutenant who was appointed to oversee the elimination of USAID programs, according to termination notices sent to partners and viewed by the AP.

The WFP, the world’s largest provider of food aid, had publicly appealed to the U.S. on Monday to reconsider cuts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for food programs.

“This could amount to a death sentence for millions of people facing extreme hunger and starvation,” WFP posted on X.