WH press secretary justifies US aid freeze by suggesting taxpayers were on the hook for Gazan condoms

President Donald Trump ordered a pause in foreign aid on Jan. 20, eliciting backlash from beneficiaries abroad and vested interests at home.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt provided pearl-clutchers with a reality check Tuesday, identifying two damning examples of how tens of millions of American tax dollars were allegedly set to be squandered in distant lands: in one instance on condoms in a terrorist hotbed and in other instance on a scandal-plagued international organization the U.S. is leaving in the dust.

Trump, convinced that the U.S. "foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values," ordered a 90-day pause in foreign aid, affording his administration an opportunity to review relevant programs "for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy."

In accordance with Trump's order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

"Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative," Tammy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement Sunday. "The secretary is proud to protect America's investment with a deliberate and judicious review of how we spend foreign assistance dollars overseas."

'The aid community is grappling with just how existential this aid suspension is.'

Following the State Department's announcement, Trump noted during House Republicans' annual retreat Monday in Florida, "We get tired of giving massive amounts of money to countries that hate us, don't we?"

The possibility that the American government might condition foreign aid on whether a given initiative abroad makes the U.S. safer, stronger, and more prosperous rankled various activists and NGOs.

InterAction, the biggest alliance of international aid organizations in the country, condemned the funding freeze, alleging in a statement that it "creates dangerous vacuums that China and our adversaries will quickly fill."

"It stops assistance in countries critical to U.S. interests, including Taiwan, Syria, and Pakistan," continued the statement from InterAction. "And, it halts decades of lifesaving work through PEPFAR that helps babies to be born HIV-free."

Abby Maxman, the president and CEO of Oxfam, told ABC News in a statement, "The aid community is grappling with just how existential this aid suspension is — we know this will have life-or-death consequences for millions around the globe, as programs that depend on this funding grind to a halt without a plan or safety net."

"This decision must be reversed, and funding and programming must be allowed to move forward," added Maxman.

'Everybody rips off the United States.'

A reporter complained during the White House press briefing Tuesday that Trump's freezes and attempted freezes on federal funding were executed with "little notice," putting organizations on the back foot.

After noting in reply that Americans' "tax dollars actually matter this this administration," Leavitt provided examples of why quick action was warranted, noting that the White House budget office and the Department of Government Efficiency found that "there was $37 million that was about to go out the door to the World Health Organization."

Leavitt indicated that it is clear from Trump's executive order withdrawing from the WHO that such funding "wouldn't be in line with the president's agenda."

Trump set the ball rolling on severing all official ties with the WHO via executive order on Jan. 20, stating that the "WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries' assessed payments. China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO."

"World Health ripped us off," said Trump. "Everybody rips off the United States. It's not going to happen any more."

'We are protecting American taxpayers.'

"DOGE and OMB also found that there was about to be 50 million taxpayer dollars that went out the door to fund condoms in Gaza," Leavitt added Tuesday. "That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money."

Some critics have questioned whether $50 million was actually earmarked for shipping condoms to Gaza, which only has a population of around 2.1 million people. Doubts were fueled in part by reports highlighting that in 2023, USAID allocated $60.8 million in funding for condoms and female contraceptives globally and that none of that funding went to Gaza. Only $45,681 worth of condoms were delivered to the Middle East that fiscal year.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce clarified in an X thread that the blocked funds for contraception were part of $102 million in planned "unjustified funding to a contractor in Gaza."

A Trump administration official confirmed to the Independent on Wednesday that the blocked grants were partly for contraceptives but also for the International Medical Corps, an America-based organization that operates field hospitals in Gaza, to provide "family planning programming including emergency contraception; sexual health care including prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections; and adolescent sexual and reproductive health."

Todd Bernhardt, a spokesman for the IMC, told the Washington Post that "no U.S. government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms."

While it's unclear whether taxpayers were actually on the hook for Gazan condoms, Bruce noted that the overall pause in foreign assistance has enabled the State Department to prevent $16 million in funding from going to institutional contractors in gender development offices; $4 million from going to the Center for Climate-Positive Development; $12 million from going to provide support services to the USAID Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security; $6 million from going to fund "administrative support for an already bloated 'Center of Excellence'"; and $600,000 to fund technical assistance for family planning in Latin America.

"We will not allow the bureaucracy to exploit a crisis and waste taxpayer dollars. We are protecting American taxpayers, safeguarding America’s national security, and ensuring actual lifesaving humanitarian aid continues," said Bruce.

Government data shows that the U.S. blew $68 billion on foreign aid in 2023 and had nearly $40 billion in obligations for fiscal year 2024.

According to the United Nations, the U.S. is far and away the biggest global provider of humanitarian aid, accounting for over 42% of funding worldwide last year. The runner-up was the European Union, which collectively accounted for only 8.1% of global funding.

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