The Trump administration's freeze on foreign aid is crippling global efforts to prevent and respond to famine, leaving aid organizations without guidance on what relief programs are allowed to continue. The halt in aid has put 500,000 metric tons of food, worth $340 million, in limbo, as humanitarian organizations wait for U.S. State Department approval to distribute it. The U.S. government has also issued stop-work orders to two major manufacturers of nutritional supplements, diminishing the supply of life-saving food for severely malnourished children. The shutdown of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), which provided food security alerts, has left aid organizations without a key source of guidance on where and how to deploy humanitarian relief.