President Trump has issued an executive order for a 90-day pause in all foreign aid including food aid while the administration undertakes an evaluation of the programs.

In the executive order, Trump wrote, “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values. They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.

“It is the policy of United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the president of the United States.”

Devex, a publication that follows foreign aid, wrote, “It’s all got some food and nutrition advocates quaking in their boots. The U.S. is not only the world’s largest bilateral foreign aid donor — it spent $64.7 billion last year — it also gives the most food aid, by far. And while global food security and nutrition have long enjoyed bipartisan support, Republicans have a majority in both the House and Senate in the newly assembled Congress — and they’re decidedly more aligned with Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda. That’s a gift to Trump, who will need their support to carry out everything that he wants to do.”

Devex added, “USAID’s Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, or REFS, could face political and funding challenges under Trump, given its approach that closely links food security to climate change, which Trump is publicly skeptical of. REFS runs Feed the Future, the biggest U.S. global hunger and food security initiative, with an annual budget topping $1 billion. ‘There’s concern that this could be a lightning rod from an appropriations perspective,’ a senior leader at a U.S.-based international NGO that works on nutrition told me, referring to the U.S. federal budgeting system. ‘Will we have to de-climatize food and agriculture policy?’ they added.”

Devex continued, “For REFS — and other U.S. government programs that link food security and hunger to climate change — surviving the second Trump administration might come down to reframing their work. ‘At the end of the day, it’s about messaging and how we talk about these issues,’ Katie Lee, vice president of government affairs at the Washington-based Farm Journal Foundation, told Devex. Climate-focused work could be deprioritized by this administration. But in the previous Trump administration, a lot of work in agriculture had a positive impact on climate issues, but the real purpose of that work was to give smallholder farmers the tools to feed themselves and their families.” 

Trump has not announced a USAID administrator, but according to Devex has made Matt Hopson chief of staff, Joel Borkert deputy chief of staff, and Meghan Hanson director of policy.

Devex also noted, “Trump has selected Luke Lindberg as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary of agriculture for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, which oversees USDA’s involvement in Feed the Future and other international food aid programs. The position requires Senate confirmation. Lindberg — who is the son-in-law of U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota — is a senior fellow at the America First Institute as well as the president and CEO of public-private partnership South Dakota Trade, and he previously served as chief of staff at the Export-Import Bank of the United States.”

Devex also noted, “It was widely expected that Trump would set his sights on the United Nations, and WHO was his first target. ‘If the U.S. exits WHO, our ability to influence global nutrition policy will be hurt,’ the same NGO leader speaking anonymously told me last week. Less clear is what the new administration means for the World Food Programme, whose executive director, Cindy McCain, (in)famously does not get along with Trump. WFP, which counts on the U.S. as its biggest donor, faces a massive budget shortfall as hunger crises soar worldwide. McCain has never been able to raise as much money as her predecessor, David Beasley, a fellow Republican whom Trump had nominated for the job.

“There is some hope amid the uncertainty: During her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Trump’s pick as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Elise Stefanik, voiced strong support for WFP and UNICEF, which runs nutrition programs in 130 countries. She stressed they are the kinds of U.N. agencies that advance U.S. national security interests and should continue to be backed by Americans.”