By Leah Douglas
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The administration of President Donald Trump has made $450 million in tariff revenue available for a childhood nutrition program imperiled by the federal government shutdown, according to federal funding records.
The shutdown, now in its 34th day, has compromised benefits for nearly 7 million low-income Americans who are pregnant, breastfeeding or who have children under age 5 who receive food, nutrition counseling and other support through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC.
The money was transferred to the WIC program on Friday, according to the records from the White House Office of Management and Budget. It was drawn from a pool of tariff revenue made available to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for commodity and disaster assistance, and will cover about three weeks of benefits, said the National WIC Association.
The USDA previously drew on that funding source in mid-October to send states about $300 million for two weeks of WIC benefits.
State agencies are expected to receive the funds in the next two days, the NWA said.
The additional funds come as food aid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, remains delayed. The Trump administration on Monday said it would draw on contingency funds to partially pay for November SNAP benefits, but that some states could take weeks or months to calculate and distribute the aid.
“We anticipate the disruptions in SNAP may lead additional families to certify (for) WIC or families to run through their WIC benefits faster, so we will be keeping a really close eye on these resources because we know that WIC can’t fill the gap that SNAP plays for families,” said Nell Menefee-Libey, senior public policy manager at the NWA.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NO TARIFF MONEY FOR SNAP
SNAP aid for nearly 42 million low-income Americans lapsed for the first time in the program’s 60-year history on November 1 after neither Congress nor the Trump administration acted to fund the benefits during the shutdown.
The administration said in a court filing on Monday that while it has drawn on tariff revenue to fund WIC, it will not draw on the pool for the $4 billion required to fully fund November SNAP benefits.
The tariff revenue also supports child nutrition programs like school lunches, and moving billions to SNAP would threaten that funding, said Patrick Penn, deputy under secretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services at the USDA, in the filing.
“Creating a shortfall in Child Nutrition Program funds to fund one month of SNAP benefits is an unacceptable risk, even considering the procedural difficulties with delivering a partial November SNAP payment, because shifting $4 billion dollars to America’s SNAP population merely shifts the problem to millions of America’s low income children that receive their meals at school,” Penn said.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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