Support the Saving Lives and Taxpayer Dollars Act (S. 2252) and (H.R. 4516)

Upon assuming office in January, the Trump-Vance administration made quick work of dismantling U.S. foreign assistance, including shuttering USAID, proposing and ultimately receiving a rescissions package totaling billions in already appropriated funds, and firing thousands of foreign policy experts through mass reductions in force.1 In July of 2025, the Trump administration destroyed 500 metric tons of life-saving food aid, which it had withheld and allowed to spoil.  Now, the administration plans to incinerate nearly $10 million worth of birth control already paid for by American taxpayers.2 The additional funding to destroy these supplies will also come from taxpayer dollars, despite multiple organizations offering to pay to purchase and/or ship the supplies.

The cost to destroy the food aid was over $100,000, but the human cost is much greater: that amount of nutritional aid would have been enough to feed 1.5 million children for a week, or 27,000 starving children for a month.3 The food aid was grown by American farmers and cost approximately $800,000.3 Organizations like the World Food Programme offered to distribute the high-energy biscuits but were refused. Greater access to family planning products and services has the potential to prevent up to 30 percent of the 295,000 annual maternal deaths and save the lives of approximately 1,400,000 children who are younger than 5 years old.

The Saving Lives and Taxpayer Dollars Act would prevent the unnecessary destruction and waste of foreign assistance commodities—including food, medicine and medical devices—by ensuring that they are delivered to intended recipients before they spoil or expire.