What we know about Trump’s claim that the US was planning to spend $ 50 million on condoms for gaza

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

“We identified and stopped $ 50 million and were sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas,” he said Wednesday. “They’ve used them as a method of making bombs.”

The US State Department said By 2021, Hamas and other militant groups have a history of launching burning balloons against Israel. Previously photos taken by Associated Press in 2020 show masked men attaching burning devices to gas -filled condoms and balloons.

However, neither Trump nor officials in his administration have provided proof of the program they are referring to, nor whether Hamas has used condoms as a weapon in his war with Israel. The Office of Management and Budget and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have not answered questions from CBS News. Available figures from the State Department show that previous shipments for contraception, including condoms, to the Middle East cost far less than $ 50 million.

Without specifying if she was referring to a program that included the $ 50 million speech, spokesman for the state department Tammy Bruce said That a federal break in foreign aid included preventing $ 102 million in “unjustified funding” to a contractor in Gaza, “including money for contraception.”

In an e email to journalists, Bruce added that the administration stopped $ 102 million in funding for the international Medical Corps to Gaza.

In one News messageThe International Medical Corps, a global aid organization based in Los Angeles, replied that it has received about $ 68 million from USAID since October 7, 2023, and has used funding to operate two field hospitals in Gaza.

“No US government financing was used to acquire or distribute condoms,” states the organization’s statement.

The latest available report online about contraception and condom shipments from USAID, from Financial year 2023says the agency’s only shipping of contraception to the Middle East since the 2019 financial year was made to Jordan and cost $ 45,680. The shipment contained injectable and oral birth control, not condoms.

According to USAID reports, shipments of contraception to the Middle East do not occur annually. In the decade before the financial year 2023 there were only two shipments, including one in the financial year 2019 and one in the financial year 2013. In The financial year 2019USAID spent a total of $ 1.1 million on contraception for Yemen, with condoms that made up 4% of the total value.

It is unclear if there were any planned contraceptives to Gaza for the financial year 2025. But the total value of all birth control sent from USA was $ 60 million in the financial year 2023, which included shipments to 23 countries.

Layla Ferris contributed to this report.