U.S. pays $25,000 a month to store unusable contraceptives in Belgium

American taxpayers are still paying $24,550 a month to store contraceptives in Belgium that were bought for poorer countries and can no longer be used. The stockpile, now valued at $9.7 million, has become a case study in how a freeze on aid can turn a health supply chain into a costly dead end.

The USAID Office of Inspector General said in a June 10 advisory that $8 million of the commodities had become unusable after being moved out of climate-controlled storage, while another $1.7 million was nearing expiration. USAID has already spent more than $360,000 on storage and transportation since January 2025, and the bill keeps running until the government gives final disposition instructions.

The breakdown began after a bipartisan request from Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Lisa Murkowski. USAID ended the family-planning task order in response to Executive Order 14169 on January 20, 2025, issued a stop-work order on January 27, and sent a formal termination notice on March 14. By then, 20 of 24 truckloads had already lost safe storage conditions, leaving roughly $8 million in implants and pills outside the temperature controls they needed.

That failure has echoed through several rounds of failed salvage attempts. Reuters reported in July 2025 that the U.S. planned to send nearly $10 million worth of contraceptives from Belgium to France for incineration at a medical-waste facility for about $160,000, after rejecting offers from the United Nations and family-planning groups to buy or ship the supplies to lower-income countries. Belgium said it explored temporary relocation and other options, but no viable alternative could be secured. MSI Reproductive Choices said it offered to pay for repackaging, shipping and import duties, but the U.S. declined.

Later reporting said the supplies were mostly intended for Tanzania, where import rules require a minimum shelf life. Around a million vials of injectables and more than 400,000 implants, worth about $3.97 million, were at risk of becoming noncompliant with those rules even before expiry. The unused stock also included about $1.7 million that Chemonics proposed donating to Uganda for an additional cost, but that plan stalled too.

The broader public health stakes are larger than the warehouse bill. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee said U.S. family-planning and reproductive-health aid helped 47.6 million women and couples receive contraceptive services in 2024, prevented 17.1 million unintended pregnancies and 5.2 million unsafe abortions, and helped save the lives of 34,000 women. In Belgium, stalled policy has meant warehouse fees, wasted supplies, and a shrinking chance to deliver care where it was meant to go.