‘Children Around The World Are Unnecessarily Dying’: Seth Magaziner Demands Food Aid Funding Restoration

During remarks on the House floor prior to the Congressional recess, Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) spoke about food aid funding.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Speaker, I rise today for the 13th time to call for the Trump administration to restore

00:10funding for life-saving food aid for malnourished children across the world. Now, every seven

00:19seconds, a child in this world dies of malnutrition, of starvation, needlessly and unnecessarily.

00:27But for decades, the United States has saved lives, particularly by providing funding for

00:36ready-to-use therapeutic food, also known as plumpy nut. This is a miracle treatment, a peanut-based

00:42paste that treats malnutrition, doesn't need to be refrigerated, can be shipped around the world,

00:50you don't need to add water, and it saves the lives of children. Adhesion Nutrition in North

00:56Kingstown, Rhode Island is one of the factories that produces plumpy nut, and from that factory

01:01alone, over the last decade, 25 million children have been saved from this treatment.

01:09But funding was cut off at the beginning of the Trump administration under the so-called

01:14Doge Initiative. And every day that this product sits in warehouses in Rhode Island is a day that

01:22children around the world are unnecessarily dying. Now, the good news is that Elon Musk,

01:31Marco Rubio, and others have said that this funding will be restored. In fact, just yesterday,

01:37at his Senate hearing, Secretary Rubio said again that essential humanitarian aid, including, he meant,

01:44food aid will be continued. So do it already. It's good that the administration is saying that they

01:52intend to continue providing this aid around the world, but they need to do it. Because again,

01:58there are thousands of boxes of this ready-to-use food sitting in warehouses here in the United States

02:04that should be getting to the children who need it. And every day that the United States fails to provide

02:11this aid is a day that China and our other adversaries have an opportunity to step into

02:16the void and earn goodwill around the world. But as the Secretary pointed out yesterday,

02:22and Secretary Rubio said this, China's generosity is not free. China's generosity comes with a price.

02:30It comes with the price of subservience and dependency on the Chinese Communist Party. That is not

02:37what we want. We want the developing world to be allied with the United States for our own reasons,

02:45so that we can have access to critical minerals, so that we can have access to intelligence, so that we can

02:51beat back terrorist organizations that would otherwise threaten U.S. interests. We want the goodwill of the

02:59developing world, and we can maintain that goodwill by continuing our commitment to doing our part to

03:07end global hunger with U.S. produced products sourced from U.S. farmers, built, manufactured in U.S. factories

03:18that help build U.S. goodwill around the world. That's what we want to continue. We do not want to give an

03:24opportunity to China or anybody else to fill the void that is being created right now. The global

03:32report on food crisis published last Friday by the U.N. confirms what we've been warning. The number of

03:38people facing famine has more than doubled in the last year. Malnutrition globally is on the rise. This

03:45is a global emergency, one that the United States has the greatest capacity to help solve.

03:51The burden should not and cannot fall entirely on us, but leadership comes with a responsibility,

04:01and we have the responsibility to continue to do our part. The moment is calling us. So once again,

04:07I will rise in this chamber every single day until the administration does what it says it's going to do

04:14and continues funding ready to use therapeutic food. We're not asking the administration to change

04:22their policy. We are asking them to just execute on their stated policy. Do what you said you were going

04:29to do. Continue the funding, resume the flow of aid, save the lives of malnourished children around the

04:37world and strengthen America in the process. I yield back.