Cuts to US foreign aid under President Donald Trump’s administration have caused a “seismic shock” to global humanitarian efforts, with potentially deadly consequences, a UN agency head warned on Wednesday.
Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that over 300 million people worldwide require humanitarian support, and funding cuts have left aid agencies struggling to meet urgent needs.
“Many will die because that aid is drying up,” Fletcher told a press conference.
Since Trump’s return to office in January, his administration has aggressively slashed government spending, freezing all foreign aid for review. Last week, the US State Department announced that 83% of USAID contracts would be terminated, triggering immediate global repercussions.
Fletcher acknowledged that the UN has been “over-reliant on US funding” and now faces excruciating decisions on how to allocate its dwindling resources.
“Across the UN family and our partners, we’re making tough choices day to day about which lives we will have to prioritize, which lives we will have to try to save,” he said.
In December, the UN estimated that $47.4 billion would be required for humanitarian aid in 2025, enough to support 190 million people. With US funding now largely withdrawn, the estimated reach of UN assistance has been drastically reduced.
“I’ve got colleagues in Geneva right now trying to identify how we could prioritize the saving of 100 million lives and what that would cost us in the coming year,” Fletcher added.
