‘Many will die’ due to US aid cuts, UN warns

People protest against the administration of US President Donald Trump’s decision to virtually shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on February 5, 2025. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

UNITED NATIONS — Cuts to US foreign aid under President Donald Trump have caused a “seismic shock” to global humanitarian work, a UN agency head said Wednesday, warning that “many will die” as a result.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), estimated that 300 million or more people are in need of humanitarian support worldwide, and that “the pace and the scale of the funding cuts that we’ve faced are, of course, a seismic shock to the sector.”

“Many will die because that aid is drying up,” he told a press conference.

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Since Trump returned to office in January, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been in the crosshairs of his administration’s quest to slash government spending, with ripple effects already felt around the globe.

After freezing all foreign aid for review, the US State Department said last week it would end 83 percent of USAID contracts.

“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,” Fletcher said, admitting that “we have been… over-reliant on US funding.”

In December, the UN estimated $47.4 billion would be needed for humanitarian aid in 2025, though that amount was only sufficient to support an estimated 190 million people in need.

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Without US funding, which Fletcher said “has saved hundreds of millions of lives,” the estimated reach of UN humanitarian aid has been downsized again.

“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.”