GENEVA (AP) — The United States announced a $2 billion pledge for U.N. humanitarian aid Monday as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to cut U.S. foreign aid and warns U.N. agencies to “adapt, shrink or die” in a time of new financial realities.
The money is a small fraction of what the U.S. has contributed in the past, but it reflects what the administration believes is a generous amount that will maintain the United States’ status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor.
The pledge creates an umbrella fund from which money will be divided among individual agencies and priorities, a key part of US demands for drastic changes to the world body that have alarmed many aid workers and led to severe cuts to programs and services.
The $2 billion is just a fraction of traditional U.S. humanitarian funding for U.N.-backed programs, which have reached $17 billion annually in recent years, according to U.N. data. US officials say only $8-10 billion of that was in voluntary contributions. The United States also pays billions in annual dues related to its UN membership.
Critics say the cuts in Western aid have been short-sighted, driven millions into starvation, displacement or disease and damaged US soft power around the world.
A year of aid crisis
The move caps a year of crisis for many UN organizations, such as its refugee, migration and food aid agencies. The Trump administration has already cut billions in US foreign aid, prompting it to cut spending, aid projects and thousands of jobs. Other traditional Western donors have cut spending.
The announced US commitment to the aid programs of the United Nations – the world’s largest provider of humanitarian assistance and the largest recipient of US humanitarian aid money – takes shape in a preliminary agreement with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, led by Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat and government official.
Even as the U.S. withdraws aid, needs have increased around the world: Famine has been reported this year in conflict-torn parts of Sudan and Gaza, and floods, droughts and natural disasters that many scientists attribute to climate change have claimed many lives or driven thousands from their homes.
The cuts will have major implications for UN affiliates such as the International Organization for Migration, the World Food Program and the refugee agency UNHCR. They have already received billions less from the US this year than in annual allocations from the previous Biden administration – or even during Trump’s first term.
Now, the idea is that Fletcher’s office — which last year set in motion a “humanitarian reset” to improve the efficiency, accountability and effectiveness of money spent — will become a funnel for U.S. and other money that can then be redirected to those agencies, rather than scattered U.S. contributions to a variety of individual appeals for aid.
The US is looking to boost aid
The United States wants to see “more strengthened leadership” in U.N. aid delivery systems, a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details ahead of the announcement at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.
Under the plan, Fletcher and his coordinating office “will control the faucet” on how the money is distributed to agencies, the official said.
“This humanitarian reset at the United Nations should deliver more aid with fewer tax dollars – providing more focused, results-oriented assistance aligned with US foreign policy,” said US Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz.
US officials say the $2 billion is just a first outlay to help fund OCHA’s annual appeal for money, announced earlier this month. Fletcher, noting the topsy-turvy aid landscape, has already cut demand this year. Other traditional UN donors, such as Britain, France, Germany and Japan, have cut aid allocations and sought reforms this year.
“The agreement calls for the UN to strengthen humanitarian functions to reduce red tape, unnecessary duplication and ideological crisis,” the State Department said in a statement. “Individual UN agencies will have to adapt, shrink or die.”
“Nowhere is reform more important than in humanitarian agencies, which carry out some of the UN’s most important work,” the department added. “Today’s agreement is a critical step in these reform efforts, balancing President Trump’s commitment to remain the world’s most generous nation with the imperative to reform the way we fund, oversee and integrate UN humanitarian efforts.”
Essentially, the reform bill will help establish funding pools that can be directed either to specific crises or to countries in need. A total of 17 countries will be targeted initially, including Bangladesh, Congo, Haiti, Syria and Ukraine.
One of the world’s most desperate countries, Afghanistan, is not included, nor are the Palestinian territories, which officials say will be covered by money from Trump’s still-unfinished Gaza peace plan.
The months-long draft stems from Trump’s long-held view that the world body has great promise but has failed to live up to it and, in his eyes, has strayed too far from its original mandate to save lives, while undermining American interests, promoting radical ideologies and encouraging wasteful and irresponsible spending.
Fletcher praised the deal, saying in a statement: “At a time of immense global tension, the United States is proving that it is a humanitarian superpower, offering hope to people who have lost everything.”
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Lee reported from Washington.