Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said in a harsh criticism, "Joe Biden's State Department spent $15 million of the American people's taxes to buy condoms for the Taliban."
Mast asked the Biden administration what was the benefit of this move for the United States.
The harsh criticism follows the suspension of all US foreign aid, with the exception of aid to Israel and Egypt.
The suspension of US foreign aid has caused a severe shock in the Kabul foreign exchange market. Hours after the news of the suspension of aid was published, the value of the dollar in Sarai Shahzada, the Kabul currency market, exceeded 80 afghanis.
Prior to the suspension of its foreign aid, the United States was Afghanistan's largest financial backer, which is controlled by the Taliban.
However, the US State Department announced in a letter to its diplomatic missions on Friday (January 24) that under the executive order of the new President Donald Trump, all foreign aid – with the exception of aid to Israel and Egypt – will be suspended for 90 days.
The letter stressed that no new foreign aid contracts will be signed until the situation is reviewed by the US secretary of state. The decision comes as part of the Trump administration's new policies to review foreign aid to other countries.
The Biden administration quietly awarded $15 million in taxpayer funds to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to help distribute "oral contraceptives and condoms," a non-public congressional funding notice reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon shows. In doing so, the administration acknowledged that "some coordination" with the Taliban would be "necessary for programmatic purposes."
