Devex Dish: After the Trumpquake, the future of US food aid takes shape

If the first months of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration were an earthquake for foreign aid, the aftershocks are now tapering off. Now, as the smoke clears, we’re starting to see the potential future of U.S. food aid.

There are a few places we’re looking for clues. First, the White House’s budget proposal cuts U.S. foreign aid by roughly half  — and while that proposal still needs to be examined and negotiated in Congress, it paints a picture of the Trump administration’s priorities in the year to come. Then there’s the White House’s $9.4 billion rescission request, in which the Trump administration has asked Congress to claw back funds it previously approved and retroactively approve foreign aid cuts by the budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE. Finally, there’s the reorganization of the State Department, for which conflicting plans are emerging from Congress and the State Department itself.

The rescission request is a kind of an immediate test of where Congress sits on the foreign aid funding issue, as my colleague Michael Igoe explains in our This Week in Global Development podcast. Lawmakers have 45 days to decide on the package, which would strip away funds they had already meted out. Will they step up and defend their past choices? The budget proposal, meanwhile, could take months as lawmakers try to reconcile whether a slimmer State Department can really take on what’s left of USAID. What’s clear is an emphasis on short-term humanitarian response, meaning things like in-kind food aid could remain, at the expense of long-term development, such as agricultural support and research to build food security in fragile settings. Nonemergency nutrition aid could also be totally cut.

When it comes to the State Department, the House of Representatives is beginning work on its own plan — as is the White House, because everyone having their own plan makes everything so much less confusing. A “draft organizational chart” put together by the Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee and obtained by Devex last week contains some key differences from the one that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio proposed a week prior. A committee spokesperson tells Devex the draft chart was just an “illustrative tool” that should not be considered “a final version of anything.”

Still, what caught our eye was the elimination from the organizational chart of any mention of the Office of Global Food Security — the very office that previous plans envisioned taking over remaining USAID food aid functions. “When it is no one’s job to advance an issue, then it just gets less representation at the table. Having an office of global food security at the State Department puts food security on the agenda and enables its consideration as an element of foreign policy,” Anna Nelson, the State Department’s former deputy special envoy for global food security under the Biden administration, tells my colleague Ayenat Mersie. “The org chart is not the be all, end all, but it can enable real changes in prioritization.”

Meanwhile, more signs are pointing to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s potential takeover of Food for Peace, the United States’ flagship hunger program once run by USAID. Today, the House Appropriations Committee will consider a fiscal 2026 agriculture spending bill that proposes moving the program — along with FEWS NET, a formerly USAID-funded famine early-warning system — to USDA. The bill, which did not receive any Democratic votes, also proposes cutting Food for Peace’s budget to $900 million, nearly $800 million below fiscal year 2025 levels.

“It would cut Food for Peace to its lowest level since 2002, when there were two billion fewer people on Earth,” says Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Florida. “These cuts are as morally indefensible as they are strategically foolish.” Meanwhile, the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program, which provides school meals abroad, sees a slight funding cut from $240 million to $220 million in the bill. Next up, the Senate will have to release its version of the bill, and the two chambers of Congress will negotiate a final budget.

Read our coverage of the budget plans:

• State Dept to cut 3,400 jobs, recast focus on US values

• Congress kick-starts State Department reorganization planning 

• Trump unveils his full 2026 budget, with ‘draconian’ cuts to foreign aid

• Trump’s $9.4 billion recission package targets ‘woke’ and ‘wasteful’ aid

• Trump budget request and rescission plan slashes global health funding

• Podcast: Trump budget targets foreign aid

Cold cuts 

An internal battle playing out within UNICEF shows just how hard cuts and mergers can be. The United Nations Children’s Fund, which supports nutrition for children and women, faces strong internal opposition to its “Future Focus Initiative,” a restructuring plan aimed at addressing financial challenges amid a decrease in donor funding. And it’s coming to a head as UNICEF’s executive board meets this week in New York to review the agency’s progress in 2024 and set its strategy for the coming years.

The plan involves a 25% cut in UNICEF’s core budget, and would fold programming from its seven regional offices into four so-called Centers of Excellence — located in Amman, Jordan; Bangkok, Thailand; Nairobi, Kenya; and Panama City, Panama — by December 2026, my colleague Colum Lynch reports. Additionally, UNICEF plans to phase out work in higher-income European countries.

But staffers say the cuts disproportionately affect field operations while leaving New York headquarters relatively untouched — and that reducing engagement in Europe could harm fundraising efforts. UNICEF’s senior management has managed the reform with a “troubling absence of strategic coherence, transparency, and governance, alongside disparities in how offices are being treated,” according to a memo by representatives of staff associations at the seven regional offices. “These choices have expanded uncertainty, eroded trust, undermined morale, and placed the organization at reputational and legal risk.”

UNICEF attributes the financial pressures to a decrease in donor funding, particularly in Europe, and anticipates a 20% reduction in 2026 compared to 2024. In her opening remarks yesterday, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said the agency is trying to “future-proof our business model” as traditional aid declines. “As needs grow and funding tightens, we are sharpening our humanitarian focus — prioritizing life-saving interventions for the most vulnerable in the hardest-to-reach areas,” she said. Still, she added, millions of children could lose access to essential services due to funding cuts, including up to 15 million that will no longer get lifesaving nutrition services, and 11 million who could lose safe water and sanitation.

Read the scoop: Funding cuts at UN children’s agency fuel intense staff pushback

See also: UN chief outlines ‘painful’ survival plan for world body

And don’t miss: The Trump administration's flip-flop on treating malnourished children (Pro)

Summit smorgasbord

We are in the thick of conference season (but does it ever really end?). Here’s what to know from the various meetups on food systems and beyond.

• U.N. Oceans Conference in Nice, France: Currently underway, the summit aims to forge international agreements that will protect the oceans, seas, and marine resources. Key on the agenda is ratification of the High Seas Treaty, which would allow nations to establish marine protected areas in international waters — the nearly two-thirds of the ocean that remains largely ungoverned. But the UNOC3 Zero Draft, which sets out proposed commitments, does not say much about the oceans as a source of food and income for billions of people. WorldFish and CGIAR are calling for the summit to recognize the role of small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in nourishing the world.

• U.N. climate talks in Bonn, Germany: The midyear meetings en route to the COP30 climate conference kick off Monday, and they’ll set the tone for what gets discussed in Belém, Brazil, later this year. Brazil has shown strong interest in food systems — for example, through the launch of the Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty when it held the G20 presidency last year. So it’s likely that food systems will feature high on the agenda both in Bonn and Belém.

• Financing for Development in Seville, Spain: While food systems are not explicitly on the agenda of the once-in-a-decade gathering, it’s worth watching what’s being prioritized for the next 10 years of development finance. FfD4, which kicks off June 30, will focus on debt restructuring for low-income countries in financial distress; forging new coalitions in light of cuts to traditional aid; debates over trade tensions; and calls for a fairer global tax system. There’s an urgent need for more efficient financing for food security and nutrition — so FfD4 could be a critical moment to secure that financing.

• Next up: We’re also keeping an eye on the U.N. Food Systems Summit Stocktake, or UNFSS+4, to be held in July in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which will examine progress on food systems transformation since the first summit in 2021. In September we’re watching the Africa Food Systems Forum summit in Dakar, Senegal — and of course, the United Nations General Assembly. Watch this space.

Read: What is Financing for Development 4 and why is it a big deal? (Pro)

With the FfD4 summit in Seville just weeks away, Devex Pro is hosting a virtual event series, tagged “Road to Sevilla.” This Friday, June 13, we’ll be in discussion with Ahmed Saeed, an influential philanthropy and climate funder and a former adviser to two U.S. Treasury secretaries. He will provide critical insights for investors, development professionals, and policymakers navigating climate finance’s next chapter ahead of FfD4. Save your spot now.

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Chew on this

Several areas south of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital of Khartoum are at risk of famine amid a shortfall in food aid funding. [World Food Programme]

In East Africa, smallholder farmers and their advocates call for withdrawal of a law that criminalizes saving of indigenous seeds. [Daily Nation]

Agriculture is missing in climate action. NDCs can change that. [Devex Opinion]

Ayenat Mersie and Elissa Miolene contributed to this edition of Devex Dish.