International humanitarian aid closes the year 2025 with its pillars reduced to their minimum expression. The trigger: the freezing of aid by the Administration of US President Donald Trump, which forces both to face needs with fewer resources and to rethink the operation of the system itself.
The cuts by Washington after the Republican leader came to power in January affected tens of thousands of contracts from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The overall value of foreign assistance that was affected was around $60 billion.
The executive order that materialized the change specified that the US bureaucracy and humanitarian sector were not aligned with the country’s interests. “In many cases,” it was stipulated, they were contrary to their values and even served to “destabilize world peace by promoting ideas completely opposed to maintaining internal relations and between countries that are harmonious and stable.”
For Jessica Stern, who during the term of Democrat Joe Biden (2021-2025) worked as special envoy for the human rights of the LGTBI community, this is a decision with “devastating and lasting consequences” for the humanitarian sector, which according to the alert is already “severely underfunded.”
“The UN did not work perfectly before, but this is like using a chainsaw on a patient who needs a scalpel,” explains the current co-founder of the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice in an interview.
Drastic reduction of funds to save lives
The United Nations announced in early December that in 2026 it plans to reduce by half the amount of money it requests from donor countries to help those affected by war and natural disasters.
Its goal is to save 87 million lives, for which it requires 23 billion dollars, an amount that represents less than 1% of what the world has spent on weapons in the last year and which does not reach half of what is requested for 2025 because the scarcity of resources forces prioritization.
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But the executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Spain, José María Vera, emphasizes that although the US cut has been “drastic”, “with a very strong humanitarian component because it was the main donor”, the context “is much more serious.”
“Before and also after the US decision there have been cuts in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Holland and some Nordic countries,” he points out. And he attributes this to “a lack of interest in extreme humanitarian situations in a context of questioning multilateralism” and a reduction in international cooperation to increase military spending.
According to a joint report by the Institute for Conflict Studies and Humanitarian Action (IECAH) and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), it is estimated that the financial fall of the humanitarian system in 2025 will be the largest in its history, with a decrease that could reach 34% compared to 2024 due to cuts by the US and Europeans.
Focus on the most vital humanitarian aid
Adjusting to the new parameters has led humanitarian organizations to close programs, focus on the most vital aid, reduce their interventions to priority countries or lower their ambition.
For Manuel Sánchez-Montero, general director of the NGO Action Against Hunger, Trump’s executive order “was an earthquake,” but one that occurred “on tectonic plates that were very unstable.”
For this reason, it is urged to follow the maxim that “every crisis brings an opportunity”, despite the risk that this nationalist turn will cause only the “strongest, most solid and agile” entities to survive.
The vacuum left by the United States allows countries like China or the Gulf states to step forward: while the first loses influence in the international arena, the rest gain it.
The co-founder of the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice considers that the questions that need to be asked are “long-term and more existential.”
“This is a moment in which we really have to face the challenge of rebuilding the financial architecture of multilateralism. It is the only way to move forward – he concludes – because if it has happened once it can do it again, and we cannot allow ourselves to disappoint the people who depend on the UN.”
With information from EFE
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