GENEVA: Trump administration freezes on US foreign aid have led many United Nations organizations to cut staff, budgets and services in places as diverse as Afghanistan, Sudan, Ukraine and far beyond.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has lamented the “severe cuts” and cited some fallout last week: Over 9 million people in Afghanistan will miss out on health and protection services; cash allocations that helped 1 million people in Ukraine last year have been suspended; funding for programs for people fleeing Sudan have run out, among other things.
Many independent NGOs — some that work with the United Nations — have cited many project closures because of the US administration’s decision to eliminate more than 90 percent of foreign aid contracts, cut some $60 billion in funding, and terminate some 10,000 contracts worldwide involving the US Agency for International Development, USAID.
For their part, UN agencies have been scrambling to revise their operations, make strategic cuts, seek funding elsewhere, and appeal to the administration to restore US support. Some hope federal court rulings will salvage some US foreign aid outlays.
Here’s what some UN organizations say about the impact of the US funding freezes and their response to them — so far.
Less UN help for people on the move: Refugees and Migrants
UNHCR : The UN refugee agency, which got over 40 percent of its nearly $5 billion budget last year from the United States, told The Associated Press on Wednesday the pause in US funding allocations have affected operations and its “first cost saving efforts” will involve cutting $300 million in planned activities.
Some partners — UN organizations often rely on and fund outside groups — have pulled back or halted some activities that, for example, have led to suspended services for nearly 180,000 forcibly displaced women in girls in Central African Republic, Uganda and South Sudan. In Ethiopia, 200,000 forcibly displaced women and girls will be affected by the closure of services, it said.
“If new funding is not forthcoming soon, more cuts in direct life-saving assistance will be inevitable,” spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said.
IOM: The International Organization for Migration, which is run by Amy Pope of the United States and got more than 40 percent of its $3.4 billion budget in 2023 from the US, said it was “acting accordingly” in response to the US order to pause foreign assistance funding that was affecting staff, operations and beneficiaries.
Devex, a news organization focusing on global development, reported last month that IOM sent dismissal notices to some 3,000 employees who had been working on a US resettlement program following the funding freezes. The agency declined to comment to the AP.
UN health agencies sound the alarm
WHO: The Trump administration has been especially tough with the World Health Organization. One of his earliest executive orders announced a US pullout from the UN health agency, which can’t take full effect until next January, as well as a recall of US staff working with WHO and funding pauses.
WHO says a global measles and rubella lab network is “at risk of collapse” because its cost of about $8 million a year is entirely funded by the US The funding cuts have affected the global response to mpox, and WHO has tapped its own emergency funds to fill gaps left in the response to Ebola in Uganda.
On Wednesday, WHO said US cuts in bilateral funding to fight tuberculosis will have a “devastating response on TB programs” — which the United States has generally contributed $200-$250 million to every year over the last decade.
UNAIDS : The AIDS-fighting agency said Wednesday that US funding has “served as the backbone” for HIV prevention in many countries hit hard by the virus. US funding amounts to 55 percent of the total AIDS budget in Uganda, and the funding freeze has led to the closure of drop-in centers and service points that provide antiretroviral therapy.
It said a rapid assessment estimated that 750,000 people in Haiti are affected by the US freeze, and 70 percent of the 181 total sites funded through the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, had closed: “Patients have flooded the remaining sites, which are unable to meet the increased demand.”
A “large portion” of PEPFAR-funded staff working on HIV response in South Africa will be affected because dozens of USAID implementing partners received termination letters last week, UNAIDS said.
At a regular briefing Thursday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric highlighted the impact of funding cuts on Afghanistan alone, saying more than 200 health facilities have closed — depriving 1.8 million people from essential health services in the country.
Unlocking aid from UN coffers
OCHA: The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Thursday it was releasing $110 million from its emergency response fund to help address underfunded crises in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief who heads the office, told the Security Council on Thursday the US funding cuts to foreign aid amounted to “body blow to our work to save lives.”
He said he had asked partners to provide lists of areas where they have to cut back.
“It is of course for individual countries to decide how to spend their money. But it is the pace at which so much vital work has been shut down that adds to the perfect storm that we face,” Fletcher said.
From staff cuts to aid reductions, UN humanitarian agencies scramble in wake of US funding freeze
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From staff cuts to aid reductions, UN humanitarian agencies scramble in wake of US funding freeze
- Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has lamented the “severe cuts” and cited some fallout last week
- Here’s what some leading UN organizations have said about the impacts of the US foreign aid freeze and their response to it — so far
Coast Guard is pursuing another tanker helping Venezuela skirt sanctions, US official says
- US oil companies dominated Venezuela’s petroleum industry until the country’s leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: The US Coast Guard on Sunday was pursuing another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea as the Trump administration appeared to be intensifying its targeting of such vessels connected to the Venezuelan government.
The pursuit of the tanker, which was confirmed by a US official briefed on the operation, comes after the US administration announced Saturday it had seized a tanker for the second time in less than two weeks.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly about the ongoing operation and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Sunday’s pursuit involved “a sanctioned dark fleet vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion.”
The official said the vessel was flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order.
The Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the US Coast Guard, deferred questions about the operation to the White House, which did not offer comment on the operation.
Saturday’s predawn seizure of a Panama-flagged vessel called Centuries targeted what the White House described as a “falsely flagged vessel operating as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet to traffic stolen oil.”
The Coast Guard, with assistance from the Navy, seized a sanctioned tanker called Skipper on Dec. 10, another part of the shadow fleet of tankers that the US says operates on the fringes of the law to move sanctioned cargo. It was not even flying a nation’s flag when it was seized by the Coast Guard.
President Donald Trump, after that first seizure, said that the US would carry out a “blockade” of Venezuela. It all comes as Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric toward Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
This past week Trump demanded that Venezuela return assets that it seized from US oil companies years ago, justifying anew his announcement of a “blockade” against oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country that face American sanctions.
Trump cited the lost US investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a pressure campaign against Maduro, suggesting the Republican administration’s moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking. Some sanctioned tankers already are diverting away from Venezuela.
US oil companies dominated Venezuela’s petroleum industry until the country’s leaders moved to nationalize the sector, first in the 1970s and again in the 21st century under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Compensation offered by Venezuela was deemed insufficient, and in 2014, an international arbitration panel ordered the country’s socialist government to pay $1.6 billion to ExxonMobil.
Maduro said in a message Sunday on Telegram that Venezuela has spent months “denouncing, challenging and defeating a campaign of aggression that goes from psychological terrorism to corsairs attacking oil tankers.”
He added: “We are ready to accelerate the pace of our deep revolution!”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, who has been critical of Trump’s Venezuela policy, called the tanker seizures a “provocation and a prelude to war.”
“Look, at any point in time, there are 20, 30 governments around the world that we don’t like that are either socialist or communist or have human rights violations,” Paul said on ABC’s’ “This Week.” ”But it isn’t the job of the American soldier to be the policeman of the world.”
The targeting of tankers comes as Trump has ordered the Defense Department to carry out a series of attacks on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean that his administration alleges are smuggling fentanyl and other illegal drugs into the United States and beyond.
At least 104 people have been killed in 28 known strikes since early September. The strikes have faced scrutiny from US lawmakers and human rights activists, who say the administration has offered scant evidence that its targets are indeed drug smugglers and that the fatal strikes amount to extrajudicial killings.
Trump has repeatedly said Maduro’s days in power are numbered. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published last week that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Trump’s use of military to mount pressure on Maduro runs contrary to Trump’s pledge to keep the United States out of unnecessary wars.
Democrats have been pressing Trump to seek congressional authorization for the military action in the Caribbean.
“We should be using sanctions and other tools at our disposal to punish this dictator who is violating the human rights of his civilians and has run the Venezuelan economy into the ground,” Kaine said. “But I’ll tell you, we should not be waging war against Venezuela. We definitely should not be waging war without a vote of Congress.
