The US State Department on Wednesday announced that it will halt all assistance programs that benefit the Somali Federal Government after a report that a US-funded World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse was demolished and its contents seized by Somali officials.

The online post said that President Donald Trump has a “zero-tolerance policy for waste, theft, and diversion of life-saving assistance.”

The US-funded warehouse sat on the Mogadishu port and contained 76 metric tons of food aid intended for impoverished Somali civilians. However, the US received a recent report from an official working with anonymous American diplomats in Somalia stating that authorities demolished the warehouse and seized its contents by order of Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, “with no prior notification or coordination with international donor countries, including the United States.”

Somalia’s foreign ministry has since denied these allegations, stating that while there is some expansion work being done to the Mogadishu Port, the aid within the warehouse was not affected. Other anonymous reports have emerged from authority members at the warehouse, backing up the Somali government’s claim, saying there was no damage to the warehouse.

The tension comes amid Somalia’s increasingly desperate struggle to contain the extremist group al-Shabab. In December, the UN called al-Shabab the greatest immediate threat to peace and stability in the region. The group in March 2025 entered the country’s capital, Mogadishu, and attempted to assassinate President Mohumud.

In the US, the tension comes following President Trump’s criticism of Somalians living in the US, particularly in the Minneapolis-St.Paul area. Trump recently enacted tighter restrictions on Somalis wanting to enter the US and on those wanting to remain in the US.