The plan envisions forging bilateral agreements with dozens of countries to receive US health assistance in the wake of the administration's gutting of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Trump administration has maintained that US foreign aid policy has been inefficient and wasteful, saying that the bilateral agreements will create more accountability, oversight and eventual self-sufficiency. Experts have questioned the efficacy of the approach and raised alarm over its transactional nature.
The United States on Monday announced a $2 billion pledge for U.N. humanitarian aid as President Donald Trump's administration continues to slash U.S. foreign assistance and warns United Nations agencies to "adapt, shrink or die" in a time of new financial realities. The money is a small fraction of what the U.S. has contributed in the past but reflects what the administration believes is a generous amount that will maintain the United States' status as the world's largest humanitarian donor.
US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau spoke to Palau president Surangel Whipps in a call on Tuesday about transferring third-country nationals to Palau, the two sides said in separate statements, after Palau's lawmakers rejected a previous request from Washington on the matter earlier this year. President Donald Trump's immigration policies, including his administration's deportation drive, have been broadly condemned by human rights advocates over concerns about due process.
When Radio Dabanga abruptly cut its morning broadcast earlier this year because of budget shortfalls, the station's editor-in-chief, Kamal Elsadig, knew the consequences would go far beyond the walls of the modest office in Amsterdam. Messages began pouring in almost immediately from Sudanese listeners who rely on the exile-run station as their only reliable link to the outside world.
Multiple groups launched fundraisers in February and eventually, these emergency funds mobilized more than $125 million within eight months, a sum that while not nearly enough, was more than the organizers had ever imagined possible. In those early days, even with needs piling up, wealthy donors and private foundations grappled with how to respond. Of the thousands of programs the U.S. funded abroad, which ones could be saved and which would have the biggest impact if they continued?
Let's be clear: President Trump has the power to end the starvation of the Palestinian people, Vermont's politically independent senator Bernie Sanders posted on X. Instead he is doing nothing while watching this famine unfold. Enough is enough. No more American taxpayer dollars to Nethanyahu's [sic] war machine. Sanders, who also pushed resolutions to ban selling US weapons to Israel, has long been consistent about his concern regarding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the war.
"Nobody really knows what's happening," one project manager running a Syria-based project told DW about the US cuts in aid funding. "They haven't put a complete stop to it yet so we're just spending the money on a monthly basis and hoping for the best."