Statement from Congressman Jonathan L. Jackson on the Trump Administration’s Destruction of Emergency Food Aid

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"As a father, a son, and as someone who has seen hunger’s impact up close, I am appalled and heartbroken by the Trump administration’s decision to destroy nearly 500 metric tons of life-saving emergency food rather than deliver it to starving children and families across the globe.

This food, worth more than $800,000, had the power to nourish 1.5 million children for a week. Instead, it will be incinerated at a further cost of $130,000 to U.S. taxpayers. Only bureaucratic delays and callous indifference stood between these meals and the children for whom they were intended.

While over 66,000 tons of emergency food sits unused in warehouses worldwide, children are dying from hunger that humanitarian programs could alleviate. Just recently, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, six children lost their lives after vital nutrition programs were shuttered due to a freeze in U.S. aid. We cannot accept this senseless waste when the United States has long been a beacon of hope and compassion for the world’s most vulnerable.

The destruction of this food is not just a loss of resources; it is a tragic failure of moral leadership. I call on my colleagues in Congress, and all Americans, to join me in demanding greater accountability and urgent action so that American aid feeds the hungry, not the flames of waste. People’s lives depend on it, our humanity demands it.”

Contact: 
Congressman Jonathan L. Jackson 
1641 Longworth House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515 
(202) 225-4372