FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—President Donald Trump’s State Department responded to its first disaster since reorienting its foreign assistance programs to align with U.S. interests.
State Department disaster experts led the United States’ support for the millions of Filipinos affected by ongoing flooding, a senior State Department official told The Daily Signal.
Since mid-July, floods and landslides caused by tropical cyclones and the southwest monsoon have caused at least 34 deaths. More than 192,000 people remain displaced by the storms and floods as of July 30, including more 107,000 people taking shelter across 1,017 evacuation centers.
The Trump administration cut funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development foreign assistance program, citing scarce gains and high costs, but the State Department maintained its commitment to essential lifesaving programs and strategic investments.
The monsoons in the Philippines mark the first time the new “America First” foreign policy program was put to the test.
“Our team is on the ground in central Luzon assessing needs and supporting food distribution for displaced families,” the senior State Department official told The Daily Signal. “We have provided funding to the World Food Program to bolster the [Philippine government]’s emergency logistics capacity and help reach remote communities.”
State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration has provided the U.N. World Food Program with $250,000 to help transport family food packs and other relief supplies to affected areas in the Metro Manila, Northern and Central Luzon, and Calabarzon regions.
The family food packs contain supplies and food items that can sustain a family of five for about three days.
As of July 29, the U.N. World Food Program has transported 34,000 family food packs to Ilocos Norte, Pangasinan, and La Union provinces in northern Luzon.
The Philippine government asked the U.S. Department of Defense’s logistical support for disaster relief efforts on July 27.
Just three days later, U.S. military teams launched an airlift of relief commodities from the Philippine Air Force’s Clark Air Base to Basco, Batanes, with an aircraft delivering 300 boxes of family food packs to Basco.
The U.S. airbridge will extend the reach of the ongoing response into the remote Batanes islands, where bad weather continues. If weather permits, more DoD relief flights to Batanes are planned in the coming days.
State Department staff in both the nation’s capital and the Philippines continue to work with World Food Program, the DoD, and the Philippine government to support ongoing response efforts.