President Donald Trump has apparently shut down a $50 million foreign aid program designed to give condoms to Gazans, said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in her first briefing on Wednesday. According to her, this is a measure needed to stop what she calls “a preposterous waste of taxpayer money.” However, the claim is quickly disputed by experts, former officials, and aid organizations, which say otherwise.
Leavitt did not provide evidence to support her claim regarding the $50 million allocation for condoms. When pressed for clarification, White House officials shifted inquiries to statements from the State Department, which failed to confirm her assertion. While those statements acknowledged the suspension of certain aid programs, they did not specify a $50 million initiative focused on condom distribution.
A recent federal report shows that under the Biden administration, USAID made no provision for condoms in the Middle East during the years 2021, 2022, and 2023. The only contraceptive funding reported is an order of injectables and pills shipped to Jordan valued at a mere $46,000.
This raises quite crucial questions on the $50 million figure, in light of the fact that the global expenditure for male and female condoms by USAID in 2023 amounted to approximately $8.2 million, going mostly to African nations.
Former senior Biden officials dismissed the claim as a fabrication, referring to it “as a lie,” and claiming the White House spreads false information. Experts also close to the situation of US aid in Gaza could not verify evidence of an allocation of any such $50 million for condoms. Steve Fake, of the Anera organization, who coordinates US funded health programs, agreed that this organization does not supply condoms.
This controversy emerges in the wake of the White House’s latest decision to rescind its move to freeze federal funding, a move that has caused confusion, legal challenges, and concern, especially over health care programs for low-income Americans. Initially, the funding freeze, which threatened to block trillions of dollars in government aid, was defended by Karoline Leavitt as part of Trump’s strategy to eliminate what he deemed “wasteful” spending.
