US pledges $2 billion toward UN humanitarian aid

The United States pledged $2 billion Monday toward United Nations humanitarian aid.

The move comes as the administration remains averse to foreign aid and has warned U.N. agencies to “adapt, shrink or die” in the wake of lost funding.

President Donald Trump’s administration instituted a 90-day pause on foreign funding earlier this year, eventually shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development and provoking grant recipients. An appeals court upheld the administration’s decision to cut billions in funding earlier this year.

The $2 billion comes as part of a deal with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The pledge will create an umbrella fund from which money will be distributed to different aid organizations by the OCHA and British head Tom Fletcher. While the money is far short of what the U.S. has offered the U.N. in the past — in some years it totaled $17 billion — it helps keep the nation in line as one of the largest humanitarian donors in the world.

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