Trump admin paying thousands of dollars per month to store ruined USAID contraceptives

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Millions of dollars’ worth of contraceptives meant to be distributed to low-income nations in Africa have expired, but the Trump administration is paying tens of thousands of dollars a month to keep them in storage in Belgium, according to a report from the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) inspector general.

About $9.7 million worth of taxpayer-funded contraceptives purchased by USAID and originally destined for low-income nations in Africa got stuck in Belgium after the Trump administration shut down the agency last year.

According to the report, about $8 million worth of hormonal contraceptives, injectable contraceptives and other family planning commodities are no longer usable after they were moved from climate-controlled storage.

But the administration has been paying approximately $5,000 per month to store those unusable products.

The additional $1.7 million in family planning commodities remain viable and continue to be stored in climate-controlled facilities in Geel, Belgium, the report stated. However, the expiration dates on that supply are approaching in the coming years, and the administration has not presented a plan on what it intends to do with them.

Expiration dates for these items range from April 2028 to September 2031.

Meanwhile, USAID has paid more than $360,000 in storage and freight costs for the contraception commodities between January 2025 and March 2026, according to the advisory.

The advisory, sent to USAID principal and Chief Operating Officer Eric Ueland, said the storage costs will escalate and warned that without a final plan from USAID, the remaining commodities will go to waste.

“The Inspector General’s findings confirm that the Administration’s actions have already resulted in the waste of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded commodities while forcing taxpayers to continue footing the bill for storage costs,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who requested the review along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

When the Trump administration dismantled USAID last year, it also halted global family planning programs because it did not consider them to be lifesaving. As a result, the previously purchased contraceptives were stranded.

Last summer, the administration labeled the products “abortifacients” and made plans to incinerate the entire supply, even though none of the products in the stockpile included any abortion methods.

As part of the destruction plan, 20 truckloads of the products were removed from temperature-controlled storage. But that same day, USAID reversed course amid outrage.

“As a result, $8 million in commodities destined for destruction and now largely unviable were returned to storage,” the report stated.

Some shelf-stable items, like syringes, may still be viable.

Contractor Chemonics has submitted multiple options on either donating or selling the still-viable contraception products, but USAID leadership has not given any instructions.

Nonprofit groups including Doctors Without Borders and MSI Reproductive Choices offered repeatedly to take control of the usable contraceptives to package and distribute them but were rejected.

“It is indefensible that at a time of acute global need, millions of dollars’ worth of lifesaving family planning supplies has been left to rot for nearly a whole year, while U.S. taxpayers face an ever-mounting storage bill,” Beth Schlachter, MSI Reproductive Choices’s senior director of external relations and advocacy, said in a statement.

“These are critical contraceptive supplies that could have empowered women to avoid unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and needless preventable maternal deaths but instead have been left to gather dust thousands of miles from the women who desperately need them.”

The report said Office of Inspector General staff reached out to USAID leadership to review and comment on the report, including questions about the plans for the remaining products, but never received a response.

USAID did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment.

“Months of indecision and mismanagement have turned a preventable problem into a costly and wasteful one,” Murkowski said in a statement, adding that “every effort should be made to ensure that the remaining usable supplies are distributed to qualified partners so they can reach the communities they were intended to serve.”

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Eric Ueland

Jeanne Shaheen

Lisa Murkowski

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