Belgium has called on the administration of United States President Donald Trump to abandon a plan to destroy a massive stockpile of contraceptives for women as part of its rollback on foreign aid.
In an interview on Friday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said the stockpile was mostly bound for sub-Saharan Africa.
The Trump administration confirmed last month that it planned to destroy the supplies, which are unexpired and had been purchased by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) under former President Joe Biden.
“We continue through diplomatic channels to vigorously advocate against such waste,” Prevot told the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency.
The stockpile is estimated to be worth about $10m. It includes implants and intrauterine devices, long cornerstones for the humanitarian community’s birth control drives.
Prevot said a portion of the supplies had already been moved from their original warehouse and were being kept in poor storage conditions.
The Belgian diplomat also doused reports that suggested the contraceptives had been sent to France for incineration.
“Whether here at the US Embassy or directly in Washington, we have intervened to say, ‘OK, you are changing your policy. We regret it, but please at least allow what has already been purchased to reach the appropriate recipients,’” he said.
For its part, Flanders, the self-governing, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium, told the Reuters news agency that the contraceptives are currently being stored in a warehouse in Geel, a municipality in the province of Antwerp.
Even if the supplies were sent to another country, they could not be incinerated without a “formal derogation” from the region’s ban on destroying medical waste, the Flemish spokesperson explained.
“To date, we have not received any such request,” the spokesperson said, adding the Flemish government was open to engaging with US authorities on the matter.
The Trump administration has overseen a massive overhaul of US foreign aid since taking office in January. That has included dismantling USAID and cleaving billions of dollars in humanitarian funding.
As a result of the US aid cuts, humanitarian organisations and United Nations officials have warned of shortages in critical supplies used to address hunger, staunch disease and prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Earlier this week, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from allowing $4.9bn in congressionally approved aid funding to expire without being spent.
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