GENEVA — The United States on Monday announced a $2 billion pledge for U.N. humanitarian aid as President Donald Trump’s administration slashes U.S. foreign assistance and warns United Nations 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 reflects what the administration believes is still a generous amount that will maintain America’s status as the world’s largest humanitarian donor.
“This new model will better share the burden of U.N. humanitarian work with other developed countries and will require the U.N. to cut bloat, remove duplication, and commit to powerful new impact, accountability and oversight mechanisms,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media.
The pledge creates an umbrella fund from which money will be doled out to agencies and priorities, a key part of U.S. demands for drastic changes across the U.N. that have alarmed many humanitarian workers and led to severe reductions in programs and services.
The $2 billion is only a sliver of traditional U.S. humanitarian funding for U.N.-coordinated programs, which has run as high as $17 billion annually in recent years, according to U.N. data. U.S. officials say only $8 billion to $10 billion of that has been in voluntary contributions. The United States also pays billions in annual dues related to its U.N. membership.
“The piggy bank is not open to organizations that just want to return to the old system,” Jeremy Lewin, the State Department official in charge of foreign assistance, said at a press conference Monday in Geneva. “President Trump has made clear that the system is dead.”
The State Department said “individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.” Critics say the Western aid cutbacks have been shortsighted, driven millions toward hunger, displacement or disease, and harmed U.S. soft power around the world.
A year of crisis in aid
The move caps a crisis year for many U.N. organizations, including its refugee, migration and food aid agencies. The Trump administration has already cut billions in U.S. foreign aid, prompting the agencies to slash spending, aid projects and thousands of jobs. Other traditional Western donors have reduced outlays, too.
The U.S. pledge for aid programs of the United Nations — the world’s top provider of humanitarian assistance and biggest recipient of U.S. humanitarian aid money — takes shape in a preliminary deal with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, run by Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat and government official.
Fletcher, who has spent the past year lobbying U.S. officials not to abandon U.N. funding altogether, appeared optimistic at the deal’s signing in Geneva.
“It’s a very, very significant landmark contribution. And a month ago, I would have anticipated the number would have been zero,” he told reporters. “And so I think, before worrying about what we haven’t got, I’d like to look at the millions of people whose lives will be saved, whose lives will be better because of this contribution, and start there.”
Even as the U.S. pulls back its aid contributions, needs have ballooned worldwide: Famine has been recorded this year in parts of conflict-ridden Sudan and Gaza, and floods, drought and natural disasters that many scientists attribute to climate change have taken many lives or driven thousands from their homes.
The cuts will have major implications for U.N. affiliates like the International Organization for Migration, the World Food Program and refugee agency UNHCR. They have already received billions less from the U.S. this year than under annual allocations from the Biden administration — or even during Trump’s first term.
Now, the idea is that Fletcher’s office — which has aimed to improve efficiency — will become a funnel for U.S. and other aid money that can be redirected to those agencies, rather than scattered U.S. contributions to a variety of individual appeals for aid.
Asked by reporters if the U.S. language of “adapt or die” worried him, Fletcher said, “If the choices are adapt or die, I choose adapt.”
US seeks aid consolidation
U.S. officials say the $2 billion is just a first outlay to help fund OCHA’s annual appeal for money. Fletcher, noting the upended aid landscape, already slashed the request this year. Other traditional U.N. donors like Britain, France, Germany and Japan have reduced aid allocations and sought reforms this year.
“This humanitarian reset at the United Nations should deliver more aid with fewer tax dollars — providing more focused, results-driven assistance aligned with U.S foreign policy,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said.
At its core, the changes will help establish pools of funding that can be directed either to specific crises or countries in need. A total of 17 countries will be initially targeted, including Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Syria and Ukraine.
Two of the world’s most desperate countries, Afghanistan and Yemen, are not included, with U.S. officials citing aid diversion to the Taliban and Houthi rebels as concerns over restarting contributions.
Also not mentioned on the list are the Palestinian territories, which officials say will be covered by money stemming from Trump’s as-yet-incomplete Gaza peace plan.
The U.N. project, months in the making, stems from Trump’s longtime view that the world body has great promise but has failed to live up to it and has — in his eyes — drifted too far from its original mandate to save lives while undermining American interests, promoting radical ideologies and encouraging wasteful, unaccountable spending.
“No one wants to be an aid recipient. No one wants to be living in a UNHCR camp because they’ve been displaced by conflict,” Lewin said. “So the best thing that we can do to decrease costs, and President Trump recognizes this and that’s why he’s the president of peace, is by ending armed conflict and allowing communities to get back to peace and prosperity.”
Lee reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Farnoush Amiri contributed from New York.
