Running on empty

A week ago, Donald Trump said he had pressed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to let food and medicine into Gaza. He told the press in his plane as he flew to Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, “Those people are suffering. We’ve got to be good to Gaza. We’re taking care of it.” It remains to be seen whether Israel will listen. At the time of writing this article, the blockade of food, fuel, and medicine continues.

Trump’s call to Netanyahu came earlier in the week after the World Food Programme (WFP) announced its stocks of lifesaving supplies in Gaza have run out due to Israel’s 60-day total blockade of the Strip. Communal kitchens and bakeries the WFP supports closed, leaving a majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people facing famine. WFP Director Cindy McCain told US Public Radio, “This is a tragic set of circumstances. People are starving, and …many more are going to starve as a result of this.

“We need to be able to not only have a ceasefire but be able to get [food] in at scale.” She insisted, “There’s nothing left. There’s no place to go for food anymore.” She added. “We need the world to say, let – let the humanitarians in.”

She argued, “Food is not political. And to make food political is something that is unconscionable, number one, but, number two, it just shouldn’t happen.” She dismissed Israeli accusations that Hamas is hijacking the food and selling it to buy arms. “No, our people have not seen evidence of that.”

As the widow of Arizona Senator John McCain who was a decorated Vietnam war veteran and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, Cindy McCain packs some clout despite the personal rift between the McCains and Trump. After her husband died in 2019, Trump said that he was “never a fan of John McCain, and I never will be.” McCain was the sole senator to vote against the Republican bill to repeal former President Barack Obama’s national health act. 

The budget of the WFP – the globe’s largest provider of food aid – has been cut due to loss of funding. The WFP received $9.8 billion last year, about half of its annual budget, or 4.5 billion was provided by the US. In early March, the Trump administration cut 83 per cent of the $60 billion in foreign aid appropriated by Congress for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) which supports the WFP. Its emergency programmes lost funding for Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and 11 other conflict-ridden countries. McCain said the WFP has lost 40 per cent of its current budget, forcing cuts to 30 per cent of its employees, or around 6,000 jobs.

Subsequently, the administration restored aid to Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador but retained cancellations for Afghanistan and Yemen and left in limbo the provision of food aid to another six nations.

The Trump administration explained its reasons for the cuts in a State Department statement which said, “Other programs with WFP that were terminated were contrary to an America First agenda and didn’t make America stronger, safer, or more prosperous.” In other words. to promote Trump’s personal interests which do not necessarily coincide with those of the country he has pledged to serve.

The cuts in aid to Afghanistan and Yemen are disastrous. More than half of the 23 million Afghans depend foreign humanitarian assistance. In 2024, the US supplied 43 per cent of funding for Afghanistan. The Associated Press reports that Trump’s cuts “affect about $560 million...for emergency food assistance, treatment of malnourished babies, medical care, safe drinking water and mental health care.” The WFP told the agency that “food assistance to 2 million people in Afghanistan would be terminated later this year.” This includes 650,000 malnourished children, mothers, and pregnant women.

The WFP said US cuts would end food aid to 2.4 million and halt nutritional treatment for 100,000 children in south Yemen. The WFP has suspended its programme in North Yemen which is ruled by the Houthis who are attacking international shipping in the Red Sea to put pressure on the West to end the Gaza war.

Trump’s erratic, impetuous, and disastrous first 100 days of his second term have had a wider impact on US foreign policies than on international humanitarian aid. Since returning to the White House, he has alienated friends and confused foes. He has said he will compel Canada to become the 51st US state although. Canadians have fiercely rejected his bid.Trump has threatened to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland, a autonomous territory of Denmark. He has set up a system of tariffs which punish US partners and threaten to disrupt the flow of international trade. He has pressed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russia’s territorial demands for an end to their war and said he would withdraw US military aid and backing if he does not agree. Trump has called for the expulsion of 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt and Jordan in order to turn the narrow coastal strip into a Mediterranean Rivera. Palestinians, Egyptians and Jordanians have flatly rejected his idea which has been widely condemned in the Arab world.

In response, Egypt has put forward a detailed $53 billion dollar plan to reconstruct Gaza while Gazans are in situ once the war ends. Trump has continued to furnish Israel with the bombs and other weapons Netanyahu needs to prosecute the war despite the majority of Israelis who want to ceasefire, secure the release of Hamas’ captives, and withdraw from Gaza. Netanyahu prefers to wage war. He fears his government will fall if he ends the conflict.