President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development could hurt a surprising group: American farmers.
As part of his broad slashing and freezing of federal spending, Trump froze food purchases for foreign aid through USAID last month before some waivers were issued for existing contracts. Over 40% of the food distributed through USAID programs is purchased from farmers in the U.S., amounting to about $2 billion per year.
“President Trump and his team need to turn this stuff back on. You know, it’s one thing to find a few programs that are bad or being mismanaged, but just a blanket turn off impacts our farmers,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, told NOTUS.