The State Department is pointing to its “successful” Hurricane Melissa response as proof that dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) did not hurt its ability to respond to the Category 5 hurricane that decimated the Caribbean last month.
The storm, which battered Jamaica, Cuba, the Bahamas, and Haiti, was the agency’s first major test in overseas crisis response. After USAID was shuttered this year, the State Department was tasked with administering foreign aid.
A senior State Department official who spoke with ABC News called the agency’s response to the hurricane “successful” and touted the effectiveness of the Trump administration’s new disaster-response model that empowers regional bureaus to take the lead on the ground.
President Donald Trump ordered USAID shut down in July after the Department of Government Efficiency uncovered what it deemed wasteful spending at the aid agency.
According to the State Department official, the new model consolidates the disaster response efforts of regional bureaus under a department task force instead of at an outside agency that is “disconnected from broader foreign policy aims.”
ABC reported that the task force, which operates within the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, worked together with U.S. Southern Command and the War Department in responding to Hurricane Melissa.
The Trump administration maintained that USAID spent billions since the end of the Cold War on outrageous programs and “has little to show” for it.
“This era of government-sanctioned inefficiency has officially come to an end,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in July. “Americans should not pay taxes to fund failed governments in faraway lands. Moving forward, our assistance will be targeted and time limited.”
Last week, the State Department approved $24 million in storm-related assistance, including $12 million for Jamaica, $8.5 million for Haiti, $3 million for Cuba, and $500,000 for the Bahamas.
In partnership with the U.N. World Food Program, the State Department provided 5,000 family food packs to Jamaica, with each pack feeding a family of four, a senior official told ABC. The federal government also offered more than 18 metric tons of Title II food assistance to Haiti following the storm, according to the official.
“Alarmists alleged that the closing of USAID would be disastrous and hamper our ability to address crises. They were wrong,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement to ABC. “The State Department’s response to Hurricane Melissa demonstrates that the new foreign assistance model is not only capable of responding to emergencies, but that it allows for relief efforts that are informed by the State Department’s regional experts and integrated with the State Department’s broader foreign policy.”
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