Trump’s USAID Cuts Leave Starving Babies Without Food as American Aid System Collapses
A Life-Saving Mission Crumbles
In a detailed report by CBS News correspondent Graham Kates, titled “American manufacturer of food for malnourished babies lays off staff amid USAID funding upheaval,” published March 20, 2025, an American-made humanitarian crisis is unfolding with devastating global consequences.
At the heart of it is Edesia Nutrition, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit that produces Plumpy’Nut—a shelf-stable, peanut-based paste used to treat severe acute malnutrition in children.
The company has been a crucial partner in U.S. foreign aid for 16 years, supplying ready-to-use therapeutic food to famine-stricken regions. But after a sweeping overhaul of USAID led by the Trump administration eliminated more than 80% of the agency’s foreign assistance contracts, Edesia—though technically spared—was still forced to lay off 10% of its workforce due to non-payment of invoices for already fulfilled orders.
Layoffs Amid Plenty: When Compassion Meets a Wall of Bureaucracy
CEO Navyn Salem called the layoffs “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” Although her USAID contract remains active on paper, multiple invoices have been rejected in recent weeks, causing shipments to halt and her warehouse to overflow with unsent product. One invoice was rejected because the goods had not yet shipped; another was denied despite being tied to a batch that had shipped. Meanwhile, American peanut farmers and suppliers—integral parts of Edesia’s domestic supply chain—have gone unpaid, creating ripple effects that undercut both U.S. agriculture and global health aid.
A Fictional Baby, A Real Crisis
To understand what’s truly at stake, consider one fictional but fully representative case: a baby girl named Nyalok, living in a remote region of South Sudan, one of the countries currently experiencing extreme famine. Born prematurely and weighing less than five pounds, Nyalok showed signs of acute malnutrition—sunken eyes, distended belly, and barely the energy to cry. Her mother, Abuk, walked hours to a rural health clinic where Plumpy’Nut had saved another child’s life two years earlier. This time, the staff had nothing to offer. “A shipment was supposed to come,” one nurse told her, “but it never arrived.” The food had been produced in the United States—but it never left the port, because USAID hadn’t paid for it.
To be absolutely clear: Nyalok is a fictional case, based on conditions widely reported by humanitarian organizations like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders. She is not real, but her story is representative of thousands of real children whose survival now hangs in the balance. Babies just like her will now go without food. Some will die. And not because the world lacks resources—but because the U.S. government, under Donald Trump’s leadership, has broken the system that used to deliver help.
Official Excuses, Systemic Collapse
According to a State Department spokesperson, a review ordered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed “serious flaws” in USAID’s payment infrastructure, with 27 outdated and incompatible financial systems contributing to chaos. The administration now claims it’s attempting to “streamline” the process—but aid groups like Edesia say the damage is already being done. As Salem noted, “You have American farmers, American commodities brokers, American manufacturers, American shippers, and the NGOs, the American organizations… if one of those goes down, the whole system stops.”
That system is stopping.
Authoritarian Patterns, American Consequences
The Trump administration’s actions—whether by design or neglect—mirror patterns seen in authoritarian regimes. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán dismantled civil society under the pretense of efficiency and nationalism. In Russia, Vladimir Putin centralized humanitarian sectors under state control. In both cases, civil society weakened and lives were lost. Now in the U.S., Trump’s policies are hollowing out America’s most effective tool of global influence: compassion backed by competence.
Not a Glitch—The Design
What’s happening to Edesia is not an accident—it’s the result of a deliberate policy shift that prioritizes ideology and control over human life. A once-functional aid system has become unresponsive, overtaken by political interference, systemic disrepair, and a governing class that treats global suffering as an afterthought. Navyn Salem, now forced to adopt a “scrappy startup” mentality just to stay afloat, is fighting to save her mission. But the cost of this disruption isn’t just financial—it’s existential.
When Bureaucracy Starves Babies
In a Rhode Island warehouse, boxes of Plumpy’Nut sit in silence. In villages around the world, mothers wait for nourishment that isn’t coming. And in Washington, the machinery of compassion has been dismantled, piece by piece, invoice by invoice. This is what happens when a country chooses cruelty over competence, when the politics of grievance override the urgency of care.
Trump’s USAID cuts are not just bureaucratic—they are life-threatening. And the cost is being paid by the world’s most vulnerable children.
