WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The administration of President Donald Trump on Tuesday moved to reinstate at least six recently canceled U.S. foreign aid programs, six sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
USAID Acting Administrator Jeremy Lewin, who is also an employee of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, asked staff in an internal email to reverse the terminations.
The programs that he asked to restore were the World Food Programme awards in Lebanon, Syria, Somalia, Jordan, Iraq and Ecuador, five sources familiar with the matter said.
Reuters reported on Monday that the Trump administration had ended life-saving aid programs for more than a dozen countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Syria, totaling over $1.3 billion.
“Sorry for all the back and forth on awards,” Lewin said in the internal email seen by Reuters. “There are a lot of stakeholders and we need to do better about balancing these competing interests — that’s my fault and I take responsibility,” he added.
The reversal followed pressure from inside the administration and from Congress, two sources said, and after the U.N. World Food Programme said the closure of the programs could be “a death sentence” for millions.
The cuts have been the latest piece of the Trump administration’s drive to dismantle USAID, the main U.S. humanitarian aid agency. The administration has canceled billions of dollars in foreign aid since the Republican president began his second term on January 20.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Daphne Psaledakis and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Don Durfee and Cynthia Osterman)
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