Somalia faces a famine, and The Atlantic is reporting that the Trump administration isn't doing anything about it for the first time in decades … which is another way of saying that, for decades, the American taxpayer has been responsible for Somalia feeding its people. Why isn't the Somali government responsible for the welfare of its population? Hana Kiros admits that "Somalis—most of whom are goat, sheep, and camel herders—can’t expect help from their government, which is corrupt and devotes most of its small budget to fighting al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s Somali affiliate. The terrorist group controls a third of the country, including land along rivers, where it has allowed major irrigation projects to fall into disrepair."

What happened to all of the suitcases full of cash passing through the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport?

Kiros writes:

This fiscal year, despite a similarly dire forecast, the U.S. is allocating zero dollars. In recent years, the U.S. sent an average of $450 million in aid to Somalia. In 2025, President Trump sent a quarter of that amount. In January, the State Department announced in a social-media post that it was pausing all foreign assistance to Somalia, alleging that the country had wasted American resources. (This pause is separate from the severe reduction in funding that resulted from the dissolution of USAID in early 2025.) Even after the FEWS Net warning, the pause remains in effect.

The Trump administration has said that it paused funding because in January, the Somali government, while in the process of redeveloping a port area, had destroyed a warehouse that contained 83 tons of fortified foods partly paid for by the United States. (The World Food Program’s second in command, Carl Skau, told me that the organization ultimately recovered all of the food.) “The Trump Administration maintains a firm zero tolerance policy for waste, theft, or diversion of U.S. resources,” a State Department spokesperson told me in an email.

We're not seeing a lot of sympathy here. 

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