What we know about Trump’s claim that the U.S. planned to spend $50 million on condoms for Gaza

Each President Trump and his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, have claimed that the administration has stopped a plan to spend $50 million on condoms for Gaza as a part of the brand new administration’s reevaluation of federal funding. 

“We recognized and stopped $50 million being despatched to Gaza to purchase condoms for Hamas,” he stated Wednesday. “They’ve used them as a technique of constructing bombs.”

The U.S. Division of State stated in 2021 that Hamas and different militant teams have a historical past of launching incendiary balloons towards Israel. Earlier photographs taken by The Related Press in 2020 present masked males attaching incendiary units to gas-filled condoms and balloons.

Nonetheless, neither Trump nor officers in his administration have offered proof of this system they’re referring to or whether or not Hamas has used condoms as a weapon in its struggle with Israel. The Workplace of Administration and Funds and the U.S. Company of Worldwide Improvement (USAID) haven’t responded to questions from CBS Information. Accessible figures from the State Division present that earlier shipments for contraception, together with condoms, to the Center East value far lower than $50 million. 

With out specifying whether or not she was referring to a program that included the $50 million determine, State Division spokesperson Tammy Bruce stated {that a} federal pause in overseas help included stopping $102 million in “unjustified funding” to a contractor in Gaza, “together with cash for contraception.” 

In an e mail to reporters, Bruce added that the administration stopped $102 million in funding to the Worldwide Medical Corps for Gaza. 

In a information launch, the Worldwide Medical Corps, a world support group primarily based in Los Angeles, responded that it has acquired about $68 million from USAID since Oct. 7, 2023, and has used the funding to function two area hospitals in Gaza.  

“No US authorities funding was used to obtain or distribute condoms,” the group’s assertion stated. 

The newest out there report on-line on contraceptives and condom shipments from USAID, from fiscal yr 2023, states that the company’s solely cargo of contraceptives to the Center East since fiscal yr 2019 was made to Jordan and value $45,680. The cargo contained injectable and oral contraceptives, not condoms. 

In response to USAID studies, shipments of contraceptives to the Center East don’t occur yearly. Within the decade earlier than fiscal yr 2023, there have been solely two shipments, together with one in fiscal yr 2019 and one in fiscal yr 2013. In fiscal yr 2019, USAID spent a complete of $1.1 million on contraceptives for Yemen, with condoms comprising 4% of the overall worth. 

It’s unclear whether or not there have been any deliberate contraceptive shipments to Gaza for fiscal yr 2025. However the whole worth of all contraceptives shipped from the U.S. from USAID was $60 million in fiscal yr 2023, which included shipments to 23 international locations. 

Layla Ferris

contributed to this report.

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