The U.S. State Department office that funds the clearance of unexploded munitions around the world has asked humanitarian demining organizations funded by the department to cease operations “effective immediately,” according to a surprise announcement early Saturday.
The email, sent at 6:26 a.m. by Karen R. Chandler, head of the State Department’s Office of Weapons Reduction and Abatement, said the halt was “consistent with the president’s executive order on re-evaluating and realigning United States foreign aid.”
Officials who handle financial grants to the nonprofit demining groups will offer further guidance on Monday, Ms. Chandler’s email said. She ended by thanking the nonprofits “for the important work you do making communities safe.”
Ms. Chandler did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
The announcement follows comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on his first day of work on Tuesday, when he said that a total halt in foreign aid was meant “to ensure that our foreign policy is centered on one thing, and that is the advancement of our national interests.”
Mr. Rubio said those interests had been “clearly defined” through the campaign of President Trump as “anything that makes us stronger or safer or more prosperous.”
It is unclear whether Mr. Rubio or the president understands that the presence of unexploded munitions threatens the lives of Americans as well, given that U.S. troops are often killed or wounded by hazardous battlefield munitions such as dud submunitions from cluster weapons. Such ordnance killed as many U.S. military ground troops during the 1991 Persian Gulf War as were lost to enemy fire.
In the State Department’s latest annual report on its global efforts to eliminate unexploded munitions, an official wrote that the program being halted by the Trump administration “enhances food security by helping to revitalize agricultural fields” in countries like Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and cited extensive contamination in Ukraine, where the war with Russia “has littered massive swaths of the country with land mines, unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices.”
The official noted that these explosive hazards exacerbated food insecurity by blocking access to farmland and impeding the restoration of damaged agricultural storage and processing facilities.
“Clearing land mines from Ukraine’s agricultural land is directly linked to global food security and is a prerequisite for Ukraine’s recovery,” the official wrote, adding that the department’s work elsewhere was intended to help displaced persons and refugees return home safely, and facilitated economic security and prosperity.
Chris Whatley, the U.S. director of the HALO Trust, a British American demining group with operations around the world, said his organization’s efforts directly advanced the stated priorities of the secretary of state and the president.
“Fundamentally, this pause in foreign assistance is about evaluating whether they align with President Trump’s stated goals of advancing American security and prosperity,” Mr. Whatley said in an interview on Saturday. “We are of the view that demining advances those core priorities.”
