USAID condoms and contraceptives worth $10 million at risk in Belgian warehouse

Ten million dollars (€8.6 million) worth of unused condoms and other contraceptives from the US development agency USAID are sitting in a warehouse in Belgium, facing possible destruction as the agency winds down.

The stockpile in Geel, Belgium, includes 26 million condoms, millions of contraceptive pills, thousands of implants, two million injectable doses, and 50,000 bottles of HIV prevention medication, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the story.

NGOs have attempted to negotiate with the Trump administration to prevent the destruction of the supplies, a process that would cost Washington around €145,000.

Yet several sources told the WSJ that the talks have so far failed to produce results. “If that doesn’t work, it just becomes waste,” commented a source close to the talks, quoted by AFP.

USAID, once the largest single funder of global humanitarian aid, had an annual budget nearing €40 billion. On January 20, 2025, President Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on foreign aid. Two weeks later, Elon Musk, one of his top advisers at the time, announced the shutdown of the agency’s global health programmes.

By March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that 83% of USAID programmes would be terminated. On 1 July, the agency’s remaining operations were folded into the State Department.

As a result, the US is no longer the world’s top humanitarian donor. That role has shifted to the European Union, which has ramped up aid efforts to fill the gap left by the United States.

In 2023, 67% of USAID’s contraceptives were sent to African countries, where pregnancy and HIV remain major causes of death among women and girls.

The Guttmacher Institute has warned that the USAID cuts could result in 4.2 million unintended pregnancies and over 8,000 maternal deaths in 2025.

(bms, de)