By JAMEY KEATEN and MATTHEW LEE, Related Press
GENEVA (AP) — The US on Monday introduced a $2 billion pledge for U.N. humanitarian assist as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to slash U.S. overseas help and warns United Nations businesses to “adapt, shrink or die” in a time of latest monetary realities.
The cash is a small fraction of what the U.S. has contributed previously however displays what the administration believes is a beneficiant quantity that may keep the US’ standing because the world’s largest humanitarian donor.
The pledge creates an umbrella fund from which cash might be doled out to particular person businesses and priorities, a key a part of U.S. calls for for drastic modifications the world over physique which have alarmed many humanitarian staff and led to extreme reductions in applications and companies.
The $2 billion is just a sliver of conventional U.S. humanitarian funding for U.N.-backed applications, which has run as excessive as $17 billion yearly in recent times, based on U.N. knowledge. U.S. officers say solely $8-$10 billion of that has been in voluntary contributions. The US additionally pays billions in annual dues associated to its U.N. membership.
Critics say the Western assist cutbacks have been shortsighted, pushed hundreds of thousands towards starvation, displacement or illness, and harmed U.S. gentle energy all over the world.
A 12 months of disaster in assist
The transfer caps a disaster 12 months for a lot of U.N. organizations like its refugee, migration and meals assist businesses. The Trump administration has already lower billions in U.S. overseas assist, prompting them to slash spending, assist initiatives and hundreds of jobs. Different conventional Western donors have decreased outlays, too.
The introduced U.S. pledge for assist applications of the United Nations — the world’s prime supplier of humanitarian help and largest recipient of U.S. humanitarian assist cash — takes form in a preliminary take care of the U.N. Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, run by Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat and authorities official.
Even because the U.S. pulls again its assist, wants have ballooned the world over: Famine has been recorded this 12 months in elements of conflict-ridden Sudan and Gaza, and floods, drought and pure disasters that many scientists attribute to local weather change have taken many lives or pushed hundreds from their houses.
The cuts can have main implications for U.N. associates just like the Worldwide Group for Migration, the World Meals Program and refugee company UNHCR. They’ve already obtained billions much less from the U.S. this 12 months than underneath annual allocations from the earlier Biden administration — and even throughout Trump’s first time period.
Now, the concept is that Fletcher’s workplace — which final 12 months set in movement a “humanitarian reset” to enhance effectivity, accountability and effectiveness of cash spent — will turn out to be a funnel for U.S. and different assist cash that may be then redirected to these businesses, reasonably than scattered U.S. contributions to quite a lot of particular person appeals for assist.
US seeks assist consolidation
The US desires to see “more consolidated leadership authority” in U.N. assist supply techniques, stated a senior State Division official, talking on situation of anonymity to supply particulars earlier than the announcement on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.
Below the plan, Fletcher and his coordination workplace “are going to control the spigot” on how cash is distributed to businesses, the official stated.
“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,” stated U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz.
FILE – Ladies displaced from El-Fasher stand in line to obtain meals assist on the newly established El-Afadh camp in Al Dabbah, in Sudan’s Northern State, Nov. 16, 2025. (AP Photograph/Marwan Ali, File)
U.S. officers say the $2 billion is only a first outlay to assist fund OCHA’s annual enchantment for cash, introduced earlier this month. Fletcher, noting the upended assist panorama, already slashed the request this 12 months. Different conventional U.N. donors like Britain, France, Germany and Japan have decreased assist allocations and sought reforms this 12 months.
“The agreement requires the U.N. to consolidate humanitarian functions to reduce bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary duplication, and ideological creep,” the State Division stated in a press release. “Individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.”
“Nowhere is reform more important than the humanitarian agencies, which perform some of the U.N.’s most critical work,” the division added. “Today’s agreement is a critical step in those reform efforts, balancing President Trump’s commitment to remaining the world’s most generous nation, with the imperative to bring reform to the way we fund, oversee, and integrate with U.N. humanitarian efforts.”
At its core, the reform challenge will assist set up swimming pools of funding that may be directed both to particular crises or international locations in want. A complete of 17 international locations might be focused initially, together with Bangladesh, Congo, Haiti, Syria and Ukraine.
One of many world’s most determined international locations, Afghanistan, will not be included, nor are the Palestinian territories, which officers say might be lined by cash stemming from Trump’s as-yet-incomplete Gaza peace plan.
The challenge, months within the making, stems from Trump’s longtime view that the world physique has nice promise, however has didn’t stay as much as it, and has — in his eyes — drifted too removed from its authentic mandate to save lots of lives whereas undermining American pursuits, selling radical ideologies and inspiring wasteful, unaccountable spending.
Fletcher praised the deal, saying in a press release, “At a moment of immense global strain, the United States is demonstrating that it is a humanitarian superpower, offering hope to people who have lost everything.”
Lee reported from Washington.
