USAID Cuts Weaken U.S. Influence at the United Nations

As part of its stated intention to dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and circumscribe U.S. foreign assistance, the Trump administration announced recently that it had terminated at least 5,341 foreign aid projects, including an estimated 211 awards to various UN agencies for implementing development and humanitarian programs around the world. Some U.S. leverage may go with them.

While humanitarian and development aid have been traditionally distributed by experts based on need and by intended impact, there is no doubt a link between U.S. leadership in these spaces and U.S. influence around the globe—in public opinion, regional conflicts, and geopolitical competition. Therefore, policymakers should consider the second and third order political impacts of this dramatic scaleback.

Background

Since its founding in 1945, the United Nations has required every member state to contribute to its regular budget based on a formula that considers gross national income and population, among other factors. In 2024, the U.S. assessment was 22 percent of the overall budget and 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget; however, Congress has capped U.S. contributions at 25 percent since 1995.

Many member states also make voluntary contributions to specific UN programs. Some UN agencies are funded entirely with this discretionary funding—including the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Food Programme (WFP), among others. According to an analysis conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations, in FY 2023 (the latest year with complete data), the United States contributed $13 billion to the United Nations—24 percent assessed contributions, 75 percent voluntary. The United States is also the largest single donor to WFP—in FY 2023 alone it provided $3.1 billion.

USAID funding to the United Nations or other public international organizations is targeted to specific programs and outcomes and closely tracked by USAID.

The United States has historically underwritten some of the most impactful UN efforts—including food aid and vaccine distribution—in order to reinforce the international order that supported its objectives. Often, this was to address global challenges before they could cross U.S. borders, and to leverage UN tools, whether peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, or other programs, to end or prevent conflict and instability and address cross-border challenges that cannot be solved by one country alone. This is in addition to the moral imperative of preventing famine and human suffering.

On February 4, the Trump administration issued an executive order to review its support to all international organizations, including the United Nations. This review is ongoing and likely looking primarily at State Department funding—both assessed and voluntary—that goes to the United Nations. Its outcome has been foreshadowed in the president’s recently released “skinny” budget, which signals significant cuts to all UN streams of funding. However, some USAID cuts to the United Nations have already gone through, and policymakers should begin assessing the impact on U.S. influence in these spaces.

Practical Implications

The dire humanitarian impacts of the U.S. aid pullback are well-documented. A pullback of USAID’s voluntary contributions to the UN system will also have lasting consequences, albeit slower to arise.

Constricting Humanitarian Aid

The administration has signaled its intent to retain some of the life-saving assistance USAID provides in disaster and conflict situations, thus the reductions humanitarian contributions are only about 4 percent of the total cuts. Still, 49 lifesaving awards were cut, totaling at least $529 million. Some of the cuts may have direct impacts at home. For example, the administration cut $2.5 million for United Nations programs aimed at reducing sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in Haiti, and $20 million for victims of gender-based violence in Venezuela. Violence against women and domestic insecurity is a known driver of migration to the U.S. southern border.

Blows to Global Health

USAID funding can rapidly spur UN technical assistance that helps countries nip any risky outbreaks in the bud, heading off spread to the United States. The administration cut $6 million for health coordination and health surveillance activities in Gaza, even following an outbreak of polio in 2024. The continued health risks of polio have begun to spread in the region. There was also a $500 million cut to UNAIDS, which tracks and combats that HIV virus around the world, resulting in scarcity in commodities for prevention and treatment.

Disaster Response Reduction

Significant cuts were made to programs that would enhance other countries’ abilities to forecast natural disasters, respond to weather-related events like droughts and typhoons, and build resilience to minimize displacement or economic shock when those events happen. Much of the United Nations work targeted for cuts was to take place in the Pacific, a region where the U.S. strategically competes with China.

Political Implications

In addition to the human impacts, there are geopolitical implications for U.S. global influence in the multilateral system. The pullback of U.S. funding will limit the United States’ ability to shape the UN system, to maintain its leadership of UN agencies, and to put the UN tools, especially in peacemaking situations, to use. More broadly, these funding cuts will have negative repercussions for the perception of the United States around the globe.

A Strategic Communications Win for China

With the United Kingdom, Germany, and other traditional UN donors also pulling back contributions due to stretched budgets, there is an unbridgeable gap in UN funding and global need. Do not expect the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or other geopolitical competitors to jump into this space—they will not, and they do not need to. Instead, they will be able to continue leading with unfunded initiatives like the Global Civilization Initiative and Belt and Road projects, which often leave countries indebted, without an American counterbalance. Small projects and commitments, however meager and with strings attached, can easily be touted as filling in the gap left by the United States. This is especially true in places like Cambodia in East Asia and the Pacific, where China has already drawn the smaller country closer to its orbit with stable trade practices. In fact, even without investing financially, there is now an opportunity for the PRC to highlight the untrustworthiness of Americans and abandonment by the West.

The PRC can take advantage of changing global opinions to fashion themselves as the champion of the Global South, words that once rang hollow. The United States has traditionally pointed to investments in development, lifesaving aid, and programs like the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to remind countries that the United States shows up for global health in tangible ways. The United States has long advertised its investments as high-quality and with no strings attached to highlight why it remains a competitive partner geopolitically. While a humanitarian, systems-based approach doesn’t always beat the PRC’s transactional approach, U.S. altruism, including through the United Nations, has resulted in consistently strong public opinion polls in favor of the United States and a debate among developing-world elites about the benefits of partnering with the United States over others.

Diminished Leverage in Reform and Dealmaking

Many U.S. administrations have leveraged financial contributions to drive reform at the United Nations. Money has been used successfully as both a carrot and a stick: Across both the Trump and Biden administrations, USAID funding was used to spur new requirements to promptly disclose to the United States credible allegations of fraud, corruption, and sexual exploitation and abuse in the UN system. The first Trump administration leveraged threats of pullouts and nonpayment to press for reform—sometimes effectively. Policymakers should consider using this tool again to extract reform, but financial leverage is required.

Additionally, the United States has often bolstered ceasefire or political agreements with inflows of U.S. aid delivered by WFP and other humanitarian agencies. The United Nations projects a required budget of $3.6 billion in 2025 to meet the needs of the 2 million people in the destroyed Gaza territory. The United States was projected to support about 27 percent of that need, making it the largest donor and the most significant financial guarantor of any ceasefire agreement going forward. While some continuing USAID funding is headed to Gaza, several of the terminated contracts included Gaza health, security, and other needs. Without that support, the United States—and Israel—lose this tool as part of a negotiations package. Nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and other actors are unlikely to fill any gap left by the United Nations given the security and political risks of operating in Gaza. Policymakers should consider how flexible mechanisms with the United Nations would allow them access to the tools they need for dealmaking, whether in Gaza, Ukraine, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Undercutting U.S. Leadership in the Broader UN System

The United States has long exercised significant influence in the UN system by driving reform and accountability on the executive boards of each agency and by placing Americans at the head of major UN institutions. Currently, UNICEF and WFP—two agencies extolled by Congresswoman and one-time nominee for UN Ambassador Elise Stefanick during her nomination testimony as “transparent”—are managed by Americans. These agencies’ leaders have served across political administrations and are ultimately appointed by the United Nations itself. While U.S. funding is not directly tied to these positions, being the largest donor enables the United States to throw its weight around on agency priorities, country plans, and drive U.S. interests at the UN leadership level. Cuts in USAID funding may spur challenges to U.S. leadership of these global organizations. Cuts may also make it more difficult to align UN system priorities with Trump administration goals.

Recommendations Going Forward

Questions remain about the United States’ intentions on voluntary funding for the United Nations, as well as the Trump administration’s willingness to meet its treaty obligations and pay its assessed contributions. Still, the USAID cuts are a serious dent in both the United Nations’ budget and the United States’ place at the table as a major donor able to influence the UN toolkit.

The current administration must weigh these cuts with its goals to put American interests first, including the need to compete with China, the desire to have the United States set the global norms and standards, situations where UN action is more cost efficient for the taxpayer than a U.S. alternative, and where UN action is key to a U.S. strategy to end conflicts.

Moving forward with the UN review and while looking at other cost-cutting measures, policymakers should take the following steps:

• Consider the tangible impacts and unintended consequences both the current cuts and any forthcoming cuts may have on the UN humanitarian, global health, and disaster response systems. For example, a cut of even a supply chain or on a security contract may shut down an entire disease response system. USAID experts, who remain at work to close programs and continue prioritized contracts, should be able to identify these types of unintended consequences.
• Use the leverage of the budget cuts—and possible restoration of budget—to press on transparency and reform. The humanitarian ecosystem will no doubt change as a result of this upheaval. This is an opportunity to catalyze reform efforts that have slowly plodded forward for years. Any U.S. review could consider where there is opportunity to use its funding to drive or incentivize change, including at the World Health Organization.
• Prioritize the teams working on priority responses including Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, where the administration has initiated peacemaking and negotiations. The administration has stated its intention to merge the remaining humanitarian functions into the State Department and has cut the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Teams that lead the government’s humanitarian operations. However, the State Department heavily relies on the USAID operational expertise when negotiating ceasefire or peace deals. Often integrated into negotiating teams already, USAID officers working on these conflicts should be retained and the humanitarian diplomacy skill set preserved as the State-USAID merger moves forward.
• Review upcoming UN elections and appointments for UN leadership positions and prioritize accordingly. Increasingly, donors and the permanent members of the UN Security Council are reviewing what agencies they want to put their political weight behind. The United States should do the same. If WFP and UNICEF remain priorities, the United States should support the Americans running those organizations even as they make changes to the contribution portfolio and be more cautious about what gets cut at those agencies.

Allison Lombardo is a senior associate (non-resident), with Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.