30/04/2025
The Trump administration has quietly doubled down on its decision to stop sending emergency food to millions of children who are starving in Bangladesh, Somalia, and other countries. Without urgent intervention, many of these children are likely to die within months, experts tell Hana Kiros. https://theatln.tc/6dzUUndu
As DOGE was gutting USAID in February, it canceled its contracts with the two American companies—Mana and Edesia—that make a lifesaving peanut paste widely recognized as the best treatment for malnutrition. The contracts were later reinstated. But according to the companies, the contracts reinstated applied to old orders for emergency therapeutic food that Mana and Edesia were already in the middle of fulfilling. Then, two weeks ago, without any fanfare, the Trump administration canceled all of its upcoming orders, according to emails obtained by The Atlantic. “The move reneged on an agreement to provide about 3 million children with emergency paste over approximately the next year. What’s more, according to the two companies, the administration has also not awarded separate contracts to shipping companies, leaving much of the food assured by the original reinstated contracts stuck in the United States,” Kiros writes.
The pouches contain peanut butter fortified with powdered milk, sugar, vitamins, minerals, and oil, a mixture that’s easier for shrunken stomachs to digest than a full meal. They keep without a refrigerator, making them useful in hunger-prone settings like refugee camps and war zones. A six-week supply costs $40, and three packets a day fulfills all the basic nutritional needs of children ages six months to 5 years, Kiros writes. This regimen regularly saves the lives of even those who are mere days from death.
Over the phone, Mana CEO Mark Moore showed Kiros boxes of peanut paste piled against the walls of his production facility. Moore said he is terrified for the children who will die without the paste and worried for the Americans who rely on his business for their own livelihoods. “All we’re doing is cutting farmers and hurting kids,” he tells Kiros at the link in our bio. “That just seems like a terrible plan to me.”
📸: Mohammed Hamoud / Getty
