For more than 70 years, the U.S. Food for Peace program has embodied American generosity.
Signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, the program has fed an estimated four billion people and remains one of the largest and most visible symbols of U.S. humanitarian leadership abroad.
Now, as American foreign assistance is being restructured, Food for Peace is undergoing one of the most significant transformations in its history.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration unveiled a reworked Food for Peace framework through a $452 million agreement with the World Food Programme (WFP). Under the new model, responsibility for the program shifts from the now dismantled USAID to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), reflecting what officials describe as an “America First approach to international food assistance.”
The new framework means all food purchased through Food for Peace must be grown in the United States, and no funding can be used for cash transfers or food vouchers — tools humanitarian agencies have increasingly relied on because they are much faster, more flexible and less prone to diversion. In addition, at least 50 percent of all program funding must go toward U.S.-grown commodities and ocean freight shipping costs.
The agreement will send around 211,000 tons of American-grown commodities — including wheat, sorghum, rice and ready-to-use supplementary foods — to seven countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Kenya and Rwanda.
The Challenges of Food Aid
For American farmers and agricultural producers, the move is welcome news. For decades, programs tied to foreign assistance have not only fed vulnerable populations abroad, but also created dependable export markets for U.S. crops, helping stabilize prices and sustain rural economies. Since the shuttering of USAID, many of those markets have dried up, leaving farmers scrambling to find buyers. In Kansas, one sorghum farmer described warehouses overflowing with unsold grain after purchases abruptly stopped.
But humanitarian experts and development economists warn that what may provide a short-term boost for domestic producers does not necessarily address global hunger that looks dramatically different in 2026 than it did when Food for Peace was created in 1954.
Modern humanitarian crises are increasingly urban and far more complex. In many emergencies, local markets still function even when people cannot afford food. In those situations, aid agencies frequently turn to cash assistance or locally procured food because it reaches people more quickly, at a significantly lower cost, than shipping commodities across oceans. In fact, one report by the non-partisan group Interaction found that shipping costs from the U.S. can absorb about 60% of budgets.
Critics also argue that requiring food aid to be sourced almost entirely from the United States can undercut the very systems fragile countries need to rebuild after crisis.
The tension is especially striking as broader U.S. development policy shifts toward a more trade-centered approach. With the recent launch of Trade Over Aid, the administration is putting a greater emphasis on self-sufficiency and long-term resilience as core objectives of its posture to aid. In practice, that should mean expanding access to local markets and investing in regional agribusinesses that allow communities to recover faster and more sustainably instead of relying on imported commodities.
Indeed, that very debate has played out inside the Food for Peace program for years. Congress and successive administrations have grappled with how much aid should remain tied to American goods versus how much flexibility aid agencies should have to buy food closer to where crises are unfolding.
Others raise questions about the countries selected for the latest round of funding. Haiti, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo all face severe hunger challenges. But Sudan and Gaza — the only two places where famine was officially confirmed by the UN last year — were excluded from the USDA’s priority list. And neither El Salvador nor Rwanda, both on the list, currently rank among the highest global food insecurity hotspots.
Operational Issues
There are also operational concerns. Food for Peace was historically integrated into USAID’s broader humanitarian response architecture, alongside shelter, medical care, sanitation and famine early warning systems. To ensure comprehensive oversight, USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance employed specialists in emergency logistics, food safety, fraud monitoring and supply chain management.
By contrast, USDA’s remit focuses heavily on agricultural trade promotion and commodity management. While the department does operate international feeding programs, Food for Peace is several times larger than those efforts, leaving skeptics questioning whether a USDA workforce can absorb a program of that scale.
A Comprehensive Approach
Nevertheless, the fact that Food for Peace was preserved in the current political environment is significant. Since its creation, the program has enjoyed strong bipartisan support, with advocates championing food aid that saves lives and can build long-term commercial relationships that eventually turn recipient nations into future trading partners for U.S. agribusiness.
The larger concern is that an overreliance on American commodity exports as the primary vehicle for delivering aid risks overlooking a bigger issue. In most crises, the issue isn’t solely the absence of food, but the collapse of local economies and governance infrastructure. Those are problems imported food alone cannot solve.
What is needed — and what prior programs provided — were the comprehensive and “enabling conditions” that allowed communities to better recover and rebuild over the long term.
