Dear Editor:

Six months after the Inauguration, my Trump Derangement Syndrome had reached the point where I was spooking the horses and scaring my friends and family. To avoid an intervention, I decided to hit the reset button: Forget all the things Trump has done (and undone) up until now; give him another chance to demonstrate that he is a president worthy of our respect and support.

So, with new eyes, I opened the paper on July 15. One item that caught my attention was the State Department’s decision to incinerate 500 metric tons of high-protein biscuits, each one of which could keep an infant alive for one week. The funds to purchase this lifesaving food ($800,000) were approved by Congress in 2024 and the protein bars were staged in Dubai, ready for distribution to malnourished children in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But because USAID, the agency that has handled our foreign aid programs since1961, was dismantled earlier this year and folded into the Department of State, Marco Rubio became responsible for this stockpile of urgently needed food. He assured the American public on Jan. 28 that no lifesaving aid would be stopped under his leadership.

Oops — no one was on hand to ship the biscuits to South Asia before their expiration date, so they just became even more expensive: It will cost $130,000 of our tax dollars to burn this cache of emergency food.

And just two days after my Trump reset, I learned that 800,000 mpox vaccine doses purchased for and promised to African countries will pass their expiration date and must be discarded, thanks to Elon Musk’s gutting of USAID.

“Waste, fraud, and abuse” are the watchwords of this Administration. Promises made, promises kept.

Bill Hammond

Boothbay