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The Trump administration on Monday announced a commitment of $2 billion to United Nations humanitarian assistance efforts, a fraction of what the US has previously provided as President Donald Trump’s foreign aid cuts continue to wreak deadly havoc worldwide.
The US State Department said the funds will be tied to reform efforts pushed by the administration, as it warns individual UN agencies to “adapt, shrink, or die” — all while giving massive handouts to billionaires.
“The agreement requires the UN to consolidate humanitarian functions to reduce bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary duplication, and ideological creep,” said the State Department.
Al Jazeera reported that the reduced commitment “is a sharp contrast to the assistance of up to $17 billion the US has provided as the UN’s leading funder in recent years.”
“The $2 billion will create a pool of funds that can be directed at specific countries or crises, with 17 countries — including Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Syria, and Ukraine — initially targeted,” the outlet noted. “Afghanistan is not included on the list, nor is Palestine, which officials say will be covered by money included in Trump’s yet-to-be-completed Gaza plan.”
The Associated Press observed that “even as the US pulls back its aid, needs have ballooned across the world: 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 new funding pledge comes after the Trump administration’s lawless dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which was the United States’ primary body for foreign aid.
Experts say the destruction of USAID at the hands of billionaire Elon Musk and others inside the Trump White House has killed hundreds of thousands of people across the globe — and could kill millions more in the coming years.
A conservative tracker maintained by Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols estimates that the Trump administration’s assault on foreign aid programs has killed more than 700,000 people — a majority of them children.
In a blog post for the Center for Global Development earlier this month, Charles Kenny and Justin Sandefur wrote that “while quantification is difficult, there is little doubt many people have died as a result, and without action many more will die in the future.”
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