WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has terminated some of the last remaining U.S. funding for the U.N. World Food Program and other organizations providing food and other lifesaving services to millions in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and other impoverished countries struggling with conflict, the Associated Press has learned.
The World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, took some of the biggest hits in the new and unexpected round of contract terminations in recent days, according to two U.S. officials, a United Nations official and documents obtained by the AP.
Many of the newly canceled contracts provide the kind of life-and-death aid that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said would be spared. The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and slashed foreign assistance programs since President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20.
The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the U.S. Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at DOGE whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee the elimination of USAID programs, according to termination notices sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.
In Syria, a country battling poverty, hunger and insecurity after a 13-year civil war and an insurgency by the Islamic State group, some $230 million in contracts with WFP and humanitarian groups were terminated in recent days, according to a State Department document detailing the cuts that was obtained by the AP.
The single biggest of the targeted Syria programs, at $111 million, provided bread and other daily food to 1.5 million people, the document says.
About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said all U.S. aid to WFP food programs across Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, has been stopped, apparently including food that already arrived in distribution centers.
WFP also received termination letters for U.S.-funded programs in Lebanon and Jordan, where Syrian refugees would be hit hardest, the U.N. official said.
Some of the last remaining U.S. funding for key programs in Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, one of the U.S. officials said.
The officials who confirmed the terminations spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
Neither the U.N. nor the State Department had any immediate public comment.
Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled U.S. funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.
The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.
Critics have worried about the potential destabilizing impact of cuts in countries rendered unstable by war and by violent extremist groups, including in Syria.
Trump's freeze on all foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department led to a brief shutdown of services at the al-Hol camp, where tens of thousands of alleged Islamic State fighters and their families are kept under guard.
That shutdown raised fears of an uprising or breakout at the camp, and U.S. officials quickly intervened to restore services.
The State Department document obtained by the AP identifies two newly terminated contracts, run by Save the Children and the U.N. Population Fund, which provided mental health services and other care to women and children at al-Hol. It was not immediately clear if any other services were affected at the camp.
The Trump administration had pledged to spare the most urgent, lifesaving programs as it cut aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.
The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of contracts through USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.
The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Mr. Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, one of the U.S. officials said.
The U.S. had been the major funder of the WFP, providing $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion in donations to the food agency last year.
First Published: April 7, 2025, 8:38 p.m.
