Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a joint news conference with Ecuador's Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld at the Palacio de Carondelet, in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, Sep. 4, 2025. Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS

During Barack Obama's presidency, then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) — now secretary of state in the second Trump Administration — was an enthusiastic supporter of something that many MAGA Republicans now oppose: foreign aid, including food aid. As traditional conservatives saw it, foreign aid was beneficial to the United States from a national security standpoint because it promoted greater stability in other countries.

In a letter sent to Rubio on Wednesday, September 10, two U.S. senators — Maine Republican Susan Collins and New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen — voiced their concerns about large quantities of food and contraceptives that were set aside for foreign aid. And they wanted answers.

Collins and Shaheen told Rubio, "We write to share our concern regarding recent reports that significant quantities of U.S.-purchased lifesaving commodities, including food aid and contraceptive supplies, have been allowed to expire or targeted for destruction instead of being made available to intended beneficiaries. While we appreciate that operational realities and security concerns can sometimes complicate distribution, these losses raise questions about both the stewardship of taxpayer resources and the Department's ability to implement processes to deliver commodities."

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Collins and Shaheen asked Rubio for a "full accounting of costs" and "the rationale for destruction," and they wanted to know the U.S. State Department's "plan to prevent such waste in the future."

MAGA Republicans defended the decimating of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) by the Trump Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as a savings to taxpayers. But Collins and Shaheen, in their letter, expressed concerns about millions of taxpayer dollars being wasted.

"Recent reports indicate that millions of dollars' worth of commodities have expired or remained unused since January 2025, with additional costs incurred to dispose of them," Collins and Shaheen told Rubio. "Furthermore, it has been reported that European countries and trusted international organizations have requested to acquire and distribute these commodities, even to rebrand and repackage them at their own expense, but those offers were declined. These outcomes appear inconsistent with our shared goal of minimizing waste in foreign assistance programs."

The New England senators continued, "A May 2025 Department memo noted more than 60,000 metric tons of food aid were at risk of spoilage before reaching their destination. By late July 2025, only around 12,000 metric tons had begun moving, with weeks remaining before final delivery. Just last month, 15,000 pounds of ready-to-use therapeutic food expired and was destroyed in a warehouse in Georgia, despite its critical role in treating malnutrition in children."

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