President Donald Trump’s administration has announced a sweeping restructuring of how U.S. taxpayer dollars are used in United Nations humanitarian programs, warning UN agencies they must “adapt, shrink, or die.”
The warning comes as Washington shifts funding toward efficiency, accountability, and core lifesaving missions.
The State Department said the agreement forces the UN system to consolidate operations, slash bureaucratic overhead, and address what officials described as “ideological creep” inside aid agencies, while still preserving America’s commitment to emergency relief.
“Today’s agreement ushers in a new era of UN humanitarian action and U.S. leadership in the UN system,” said Jeremy Lewin, senior official for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs, and Religious Freedom.
“It shifts U.S. funding of UN humanitarian work onto clearly defined, accountable, efficient, and hyper-prioritized funding mechanisms to ensure that every taxpayer dollar spent on humanitarian assistance both advances American national interests and achieves the greatest possible lifesaving impact.”
Lewin said the reforms will save lives and money.
“Over President Trump’s second term, this partnership will save tens of millions of lives all around the world, while also delivering billions in efficiency-oriented savings to American taxpayers,” he added.
Centralized Fund Will Replace Hundreds of Fragmented Grants
Under the reforms, U.S. humanitarian contributions will flow into a centralized fund managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), rather than being dispersed across hundreds of individual agency projects.
The previous approach, the State Department said, produced overlapping programs and limited the UN’s ability to redirect resources as conditions changed.
Lewin said the restructuring will eliminate duplication and allow aid to be directed toward the most critical missions.
The United States will initially direct $2 billion to 17 priority countries, including Haiti, Syria, Ukraine, and the Congo.
That figure is lower than recent years, when U.S. contributions peaked at roughly $17 billion, but Lewin rejected claims that the move amounts to a deep cut.
“Before you dismiss it by looking at some chart, $2 billion … means millions of people are gonna get life-saving support,” Lewin said, challenging other donors to step up.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said the agency will work to expand its donor base.
“We did get too reliant on the U.S. as easily our largest donor for many, many years. And it’s important we continue that work to broaden the base,” Fletcher said.
“Adapt, Shrink, or Die”
The State Department said UN agencies will be required to reduce overhead, eliminate waste, and curb ideological mission-drift, or risk losing support.
“‘Adapt or die’ is pretty strong,” Fletcher acknowledged, but said agencies are already adjusting to the administration’s emphasis on measurable outcomes.
He said the broader “Humanitarian Reset” has clarified what qualifies as lifesaving aid and stripped away layers of bureaucracy.
“If the choice is adapt or die, I choose adapt,” Fletcher said, adding that he believes the changes will ultimately save more lives.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Walz said the restructuring aligns humanitarian spending with American priorities.
“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,” Walz said.
Lewin: Trump Strategy Focuses on Preventing Wars, Not Funding Their Consequences
Lewin said the shift reflects President Trump’s emphasis on diplomacy and conflict prevention rather than endless emergency spending.
“It’s incalculable the human suffering that’s prevented through the hard work of diplomacy that President Trump is doing to prevent armed conflict,” Lewin said.
He contrasted that approach with prior policy.
“Those costs have ballooned in recent years because the Biden administration sat by and let all of these wars and conflicts fester and get worse,” he said.
“And they said, you know, we’ll throw some humanitarian aid at the problem.”
Lewin argued that preventing displacement is more humane and less costly than managing permanent refugee crises.
“No one wants to be living in a [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] camp because they’ve been displaced by conflict,” Lewin said.
“So, the best thing that we can do to decrease costs — and President Trump recognized this, and that’s why he’s the president of peace — is by ending armed conflict.”
Over time, the administration expects all U.S. UN humanitarian funding to move through the new OCHA-directed system.
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