The 401 REPORTER
BY ELLEN LIBERMAN
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY RIETZEL. IMAGERY: I STOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS AND EDESIA.
Trump Trauma
Across Rhode Island, schools, small businesses, hospitals and more are reeling from the impact of the president’ s slashing of the federal budget. Can these institutions survive without government support?
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N 2009, THE UNITED STATES AGENCY for International Development struck a deal with Navyn Salem. She had founded Edesia Nutrition to produce and distribute Plumpy’ Nut, a highly nutritious peanut-based paste widely used to treat acutely malnourished children in developing countries. In 2008, she built her first factory in Tanzania, where her father was born— a mission part humanitarian aid and part economic development. USAID persuaded her to open a second factory here and use raw materials produced in America. In exchange, USAID would buy her Plumpy’ Nut and deliver it worldwide under its logo.
For fifteen years, North Kingstown-based Edesia and USAID have been partners; last year, USAID funds supported 85 percent of the 800 metric tons of therapeutic nutrition Edesia produces weekly. In January, the newly minted Trump administration issued a foreign aid freeze and a stop-work order and abruptly canceled the organization’ s contracts. Salem had to lay off ten percent of her staff, rescind orders from suppliers, and stop a global supply, manufacturing and distribution operation in its tracks.
“ You’ ve got raw materials in your warehouse and en route to Edesia via trucks from fifteen different states. You have product on the production lines, on ships, at U. S. ports, being distributed across Africa and the Middle East,” Salem says.“ Clinics have shut down in many places. The situation was already urgent. Dying children can’ t wait for political decisions, and hungry people lead to political instability and mass migration. The ripple effect is enormous.
“ My stress level is very, very high. I don’ t sleep anymore.”
The return of President Donald J. Trump to the White House has introduced a level of trauma unseen in modern times among a wide swath of constituencies. The affected groups are experiencing job losses, diminished incomes, uncertain futures and threats to due process and civil rights.
In April and May, United States Senator Jack Reed’ s office saw a four-fold spike in constituent contacts over the same period last year, the vast majority expressing anti- Trump“ fear, anxiety and anger.”
“ People are shaking their heads, saying, what is going on down there? Because every day, almost every minute, it’ s a different story, and many of them are so outrageous, so confusion is one of the issues,” Reed says.“ Second is the perception that the president is ignoring his responsibility to the
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