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The State Department announced Wednesday that it had suspended all U.S. aid to the Somali federal government over allegations that Somali officials destroyed a U.S.-funded warehouse owned by the World Food Program and seized 76 tons of goods. food aid for poor civilians.
“The Trump Administration has a zero-tolerance policy for waste, theft and misappropriation of vital assistance,” the department said in a statement.
“The State Department has suspended all ongoing U.S. assistance programs that benefit the Somali federal government,” the statement said. “Any resumption of aid will depend on the ability of the Somali federal government to take responsibility for its unacceptable actions and take appropriate corrective action. »
The suspension comes as the Trump administration has stepped up its efforts criticism of Somali refugees and migrants in the United States, including on high-profile topics fraud allegations involving daycares in Minnesota. He slapped meaningfully restrictions on Somalis wanting to come to the United States and made it difficult for those already in the United States to stay.
It was not immediately clear how much aid would be affected by the suspension, as the Trump administration has cut foreign aid spending, dismantled the US Agency for International Development and has not released new country-by-country data.
The United States provided $770 million in aid to projects in Somalia during the final year of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, but only a fraction of that went directly to the government.
A senior State Department official said Wednesday that the department is “undertaking a thoughtful and individualized review to determine which ongoing assistance programs directly or indirectly benefit the Somali federal government and to take appropriate action to suspend, redirect or terminate these programs.”
The official said Somalia had long been “a black hole of poorly supervised U.S. aid” and that the Trump administration was taking steps to end fraud-prone programs there.
The official said the administration ordered the suspension after Mogadishu port authorities demolished the WFP warehouse under the leadership of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud “without prior notification or coordination with international donor countries, including the United States.”
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private reporting by U.S. diplomats in the region.
Located in the Horn of Africa, Somalia is one of the poorest nations in the world and was plagued by chronic conflict and insecurity exacerbated by multiple natural disasters, including severe droughts, for decades.
