Since the dismantling of USAID in Jan. 2025, foreign aid has been halted for people who have retired on it since the program’s foundation in 1961. More recently, this includes the Trump administration’s commitment to incinerating $10 million worth of contraceptives routed to low-income regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.
In a shocking move by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. vowed to burn the already existing and financed stocks of contraceptives held at a transport facility in Belgium. This would cost an estimated additional $167,000 taxpayer dollars to complete. Tax payers have already financed these stockpiles, and to burn it seems to be an act of retribution rather than a cost cutting measure in line with the administration’s agenda. These medications were intended to aid in pregnancy prevention for 650,000 people per year in sub-Saharan Africa—deterring preventable maternal deaths, unsafe abortions and birth complications. These contraceptives, including IUDs, implants, and pills, were not abortive in nature; instead, they ensured the safety of the woman using them–thus becoming essential to their wellbeing. According to the now defunct USAID, 58% of global deaths of children under the age of five years old occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, with one in 13 children dying before they reach five. Risk factors for early childhood death include uneducated mothers, less household wealth and birth in a rural area. The contraceptives and supplemental education were specifically designed to impact those demographics by targeting refugee camps and women in low-income areas, thereby rendering the consequence of aid cuts especially dramatic.
Many of the countries that received USAID assistance were reliant on the organization’s aid for contraceptive and healthcare support. This drastically exacerbates the loss that these countries will experience given that no other single organization can compensate for the sheer amount of support that the US had provided over the past 60 years. In order to mitigate the effects of the withdrawal of aid, humanitarian organizations have offered to finance the full cost of these contraceptives, but to no avail. Medecin sans Frontiers (MSF), an aid organization based in France, has put in a bid to purchase the stockpiles and finance the distribution, but was met with refusal by the U.S. administration. Avril Benoît, the CEO of MSF, states that “the US government manufactured this problem. Destroying valuable medical items that were already paid for by U.S. taxpayers does nothing to combat waste or improve efficiency. This administration is willing to burn birth control and let food supplies rot, risking people’s health and lives to push a political agenda.” This distress is not only limited to international systems, however. American policymakers feel the heat, with Representative Gregory Meeks introducing the Saving Lives and Taxpayer Dollars Act, which advocates for the commodities to reach their intended destination before being destroyed.
With seemingly no solution in sight, the Trump administration is at a stalemate with humanitarian agencies and the governments of Belgium and France—with policymakers pleading with Macron to not become complicit in these actions intended to target vulnerable populations. The urgency to incinerate existing welfare commodities, whether it be food or contraceptives, is a continuation of the administration’s insouciant agenda targeting those who have previously depended on the United States for basic necessities.
