The guest editorial by Eugene Robinson in the February 20-26 edition of The St. Louis American, “America’s new foreign policy: Who cares?,” notes that President Trump’s cuts in foreign aid (a program which accounts for less than 1% of the federal budget) and destruction of USAID will cause “children (to) die in regions of Africa ravaged by war, famine and disease.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Robinson is not exaggerating. Over the next 90 days, 17 African nations have scheduled immunization days to vaccinate against polio. The cutoff of U.S. aid places these events in jeopardy.
In Zambia, where over 300,000 children have not received basic immunizations, all trucks transporting vaccines have been halted. The spread of a deadly strain of Ebola in Uganda may go untreated. Tanzania will lose the capacity to contain an outbreak of the Marburg virus. Ongoing efforts to halt the mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo will be compromised.
Vaccines which require cold storage are being spoiled across the continent. If we do not want these needless deaths to continue, we must call on Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt and U.S. Reps. Wesley Bell and Ann Wagner to demand that President Trump reinstate his cuts to foreign aid and halt his attack on USAID.
Greg Campbell
Creve Coeur