Trump’s plan to slash foreign aid comes as famine threat is surging

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By Kevin Sieff Washington Post March 02, 2017

President Trump has proposed large cuts to foreign aid at a time of acute need across Africa and the Middle East, with four countries approaching famine and 20 million people nearing starvation, according to the United Nations.

It is the first time in recent memory that so many large-scale hunger crises have occurred simultaneously, and humanitarian groups say they do not have the resources to respond effectively. The United Nations has requested $4.4 billion by March to ‘‘avert a catastrophe,’’ Secretary General António Guterres said last week. It has so far received only a tiny fraction of that request.

The details of Trump’s budget proposal have not been released, and large cuts to foreign assistance will face stiff opposition from Congress. So far, US funding for the hunger crises has come out of a budget approved last year under President Obama. But the famines or near-famines in parts of Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Yemen underscore the reliance on continued US assistance to save some of the world’s most desperate people.

In Nigeria, millions have been displaced and isolated by Boko Haram insurgents. In Somalia, a historic drought has left a huge portion of the country without access to regular food, as Al Shabab militants block the movement of humanitarian groups. In South Sudan, a 3-year-old civil war has forced millions of people from their homes and farms. In Yemen, a civil war and aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition have caused another sweeping hunger crisis.
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In 2016, the United States contributed about 28 percent of the foreign aid in those four countries, according to the United Nations.

‘‘Nobody can replace the US in terms of funding,’’ said Yves Daccord, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who said of the current crises: ‘‘I don’t remember ever seeing such a mix of conflict, drought, and extreme hunger.’’

US aid officials said they were still trying to discern what the White House was planning to allocate to humanitarian assistance. Even though foreign aid is typically around 1 percent of the government budget, that is enough to make the United States by far the world’s largest donor. Last year, the United States contributed $6.4 billion in humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations, more than a quarter of global funding.

‘‘We remain committed to a US foreign policy that advances the security, prosperity, and values of the American people,’’ said a USAID spokesman, who added that he was not authorized to speak on the record.

But asked whether the United States planned to contribute to the new UN appeal for hunger relief, the official said, ‘‘We have no new funding to announce at this time.’’

Early reports said Trump planned to propose 37 percent cuts to the State Department and the US Agency for International Development budgets. Many experts said they expected those cuts would exclude contributions to security assistance.

‘‘That leaves a much smaller component, which takes us directly to cuts in humanitarian assistance,’’ said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.

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‘‘Nobody can replace the US in terms of funding,’’ said Yves Daccord, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who said of the current crises: ‘‘I don’t remember ever seeing such a mix of conflict, drought, and extreme hunger.’’

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