A $10 million stockpile of contraceptives meant for poor countries has been destroyed on orders from Donald Trump’s administration, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has said.
At least $9.7 million (£7.2m) in birth control pills, intrauterine devices, and hormonal implants, purchased by the now largely shuttered USAID earlier this year, were disposed of after spending months in limbo in a Belgian warehouse.
The products were intended for distribution in poor countries supported by US foreign aid programmes, mostly in Africa.
The stockpile had already been paid for by the US government. Several international agencies, including the Gates Foundation and MSI Reproductive Choices, had offered to buy or distribute them for free, according to documents seen.
The move comes after President Trump announced nearly all US foreign aid programmes would halt in March, in line with the administration’s “America first” policy.
A spokesperson for USAID said in a statement that products included medicine that induced abortion, which would be illegal after Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy in March – colloquially known as the “global gag rule” – a policy which prevents any US money being used to provide abortions abroad.
“President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,” the statement said.
“The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid,” the spokesperson said.
However, an inventory list of the destroyed contraceptives showed this statement was false.
None of the products in the warehouse were abortifacients (medicine that induces abortion) but they were all products that prevented pregnancy, ovulation, and fertilisation, the New York Times reported.
State Department officials had been made aware of this fact, per the documents.
“The deliberate destruction of nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives, under the blatantly false pretence that they are abortifacients, is an outrageous act of cruelty,” said Beth Schlachter, MSI Reproductive Choices’ Senior Director of US External Relations.
“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 said in a statement.
USAID oversaw programmes in more than 60 countries since the agency was founded in 1961. According to government data, it spent $68bn on international aid in 2023.
Modelling published in The Lancet has shown that the dismantling of the agency, which was previously the largest source of foreign aid globally, could lead to as many as 14 million avoidable deaths by 2030.
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