Trump administration destroys $10 million of contraceptives bought by USAID for low-income countries

Millions of dollars’ worth of contraceptives due to be distributed to people in low-income countries have been destroyed under the instructions of the Trump administration, an aid agency said Thursday.

Birth control pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants worth nearly $10 million were purchased by the U.S. Agency for International Development before it was mostly dismantled earlier this year. They were intended to go to low-income countries, but have now been destroyed as the Trump team continues to shrink the agency and the federal budget.

Deemed not to be “lifesaving” by the State Department, which said the U.S. would no longer purchase birth control products for low-income nations, the contraceptives were stored in a warehouse in Belgium for months.

According to a report in The New York Times, international organizations including the Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation offered to buy or accept a donation of the contraceptives, which would have cost nothing to the government and may have allowed it to recoup taxpayer funds.

But the Trump administration has instead destroyed the products, at a cost of $167,000.

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A USAID spokeswoman told The Times the contraceptives had been destroyed because the Trump administration “will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.”

“President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,” the statement said.

The statements also falsely suggested that the contraceptives were products which induced abortions. While USAID is legally prohibited from buying abortion drugs, none of the products in the Belgium warehouse fell in that category, according to The Times.

Beth Schlachter, the director of U.S. external relations for MSI Reproductive Choices, an organization that had repeatedly offered to take over the distribution of the supplies rather than see them destroyed, said: “The deliberate destruction of nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives, under the blatantly false pretense that they are abortifacients, is an outrageous act of cruelty.”

“This decision will cost lives, derail progress in global health and strip millions of people of the basic tools they need to plan their families and protect their health,” she added.

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The decision was reportedly ordered by Jeremy Lewin, a senior official in the State Department, who directed employees to arrange the destruction of the contraceptives as “the cheapest option that best reflects the administration’s significant concerns with funding these activities.”

The Belgian government attempted to prevent the destruction, including letters from foreign minister Maxime Prévot to her counterpart Marco Rubio, a source in the Belgian foreign ministry said.

Despite several employees at USAID informing the Trump administration that groups were willing to take over some or all of the products, including covering the costs of storing, shipping and distributing them. But Washington refused. A veteran staff member at the agency wrote a draft memo recommending that Lewin sell the contraceptives to the United Nations Population Fund because it would recoup at least $7 million and cost nothing to the taxpayer.

But officials at USAID who were politically appointed instead presented a different memo to the administration, which called for the materials to be destroyed “due to the absence of eligible buyers.”

Lewis ordered the destruction of the contraceptives just 14 minutes after receiving the memo, The Times reported.

The Independent has contacted the State Department for comment.

This article was produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project.