Five months into its unprecedented dismantling of foreign-aid programs, the Trump administration has given the order to incinerate food instead of sending it to people abroad who need it. Nearly 500 metric tons of emergency food—enough to feed about 1.5 million children for a week—are set to expire tomorrow, according to current and former government employees with direct knowledge of the rations. Within weeks, two of those sources told me, the food, meant for children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be ash. (The sources I spoke with for this story requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.) …

Since Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency disbanded USAID and the State Department subsumed the agency, no money or aid items can move without the approval of the new heads of American foreign assistance, several current and former USAID employees told me. From January to mid-April, the responsibility rested with Pete Marocco, who worked across multiple agencies during the first Trump administration; then it passed to Jeremy Lewin, a law-school graduate in his 20s who was originally installed by DOGE and now has appointments at both USAID and State. Two of the USAID employees told me that staffers who sent the memos requesting approval to move the food never got a response and did not know whether Marocco or Lewin ever received them. (The State Department did not answer my questions about why the food was never distributed.)