Ever since Donald Trump and Elon Musk began downsizing the U.S. Agency for International Development, the administration has claimed that aid for lifesaving humanitarian assistance would continue. This notion has helped sustain the idea that the dismantling of USAID is merely about tackling governmental waste and fraud—after all, if the most critical assistance is continuing, then perhaps what is being targeted really is superfluous spending, as Musk and Trump claim.

But now the delivery of therapeutic food assistance to nearly 400,000 severely malnourished children abroad is in doubt due to ongoing firings at USAID, two manufacturers of this product told me in interviews. The raw materials needed to make the product are sitting in warehouses, but the manufacturers say they’re uncertain whether to proceed because they don’t know if the U.S. government still wants to buy the product—and they can’t be certain it will be shipped.

The product in question is called Ready to Use Therapeutic Food, or RUTF, a sterile, bureaucratic name that masks the horrific nature of its lifesaving function. It is a sweet paste largely made of peanuts, milk, and vitamins. It’s designed for safe ingestion by young children inflicted with what’s known as “severe wasting,” meaning they’re suffering extreme, acute malnutrition or hovering on the edge of starving to death. It’s packaged in foil packets that don’t need refrigeration, making it suitable for delivery to areas inflicted by extreme deprivation.

“It’s the only treatment that can cure a severely malnourished child,” says Navyn Salem, the founder and CEO of Edesia Nutrition, which manufactures the product in Rhode Island.

As it happens, enormous amounts of this lifesaving paste are produced in two American........

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