Agencies NEW YORK/WASHINGTON

The United States has lifted a pause on food donations, the UN  World Food Programme said, ending a suspension that an aid watchdog on Monday warned had left 500,000 metric tons of food currently at sea or ready to be shipped in a limbo.

"We can confirm that the recent pause concerning in-kind food assistance to WFP - purchased from US farmers with Title II funds - has been rescinded," WFP said in an X post. "This allows for the resumption of food purchases and deliveries under existing USAID agreements." Washington had stopped purchases of commodities produced by U.S. farmers for donation - despite a waiver for emergency food assistance - after President Donald Trump paused all foreign aid for 90 days so contributions could be reviewed to see if they aligned with his "America First" foreign policy.

The US also told WFP to stop work on dozens of US-funded grants, orders that were received five days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued the food waiver. Several of the suspended grants were under the Food for Peace Title II programme, which spends about $2 billion annually on the donation of  US commodities.

The programme, which makes up the bulk of U.S. international food assistance, is co-administered by the US Department of Agriculture and the US  Agency for International Development. The U.S. State Department did not respond to a request for comment. The USAID grants that WFP was told to stop work on are worth tens of millions of dollars and provide food aid in impoverished countries including Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Haiti and Mali.