UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that massive cuts to US aid spending and contributions to UN agencies, enacted by President Donald Trump, go against Washington’s interests.
United Nations agencies, along with aid NGOs, received notice of deep cuts in US funding in the past 48 hours, Guterres said, as President Donald Trump follows through on promises to slash spending.
Washington is the largest single contributor to the UN’s budget by far.
“The reduction of America’s humanitarian role and influence will run counter to American interests globally. I can only hope that these decisions can be reversed based on more careful reviews,” Guterres said to reporters.
The US State Department said Wednesday that it had slashed its multi-year aid contracts by 92 percent, as it sought around $60 billion in savings in development and overseas humanitarian programs.
Guterres said that “from Gaza to Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine” US funding “directly supports people living through wars, famines and disasters, providing essential health care, shelter, water, food and education.”
Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office, demanding a 90-day freeze on all US foreign aid to give his administration time to review overseas spending.
The move was seen as a step towards gutting programs not aligned with his “America First” agenda.
A federal judge had given the Trump administration on Tuesday less than two days to unfreeze all aid after a previous court order issued nearly two weeks earlier went ignored.
But the Trump administration filed an emergency petition to the US Supreme Court, which issued an administrative stay late Wednesday, pausing the lower court’s order.
