The World Food Program receives orders to stop dozens of grants

Washington has ordered the United Nations World Food Program to stop working on dozens of US -funded grants, according to an email seen by Reuters and was sent five days after Foreign Minister Marco Rubio issued an exemption for emergency food aid.

The value of granting the American Agency for International Development is tens of millions of dollars and provides food aid in poor countries, including Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Haiti and Mali.

The US State Department and the World Food Program did not immediately respond to a request for comment.