Here we go again.
The return of Donald Trump injects another level of volatility into the world's emergencies, both for people living in the midst of crisis and for those trying to respond.
When he takes office for a second time, on 20 January, Trump will again lead the world’s biggest donor government to an aid system already stretched by spiralling humanitarian needs and tight funding.
The president-elect is known for his unpredictability, but there are clues for what’s coming down the pipeline, based on his first term in office, who he surrounds himself with, and, of course, his everyday words and actions.
“He has stoked the rise of white supremacy and authoritarianism while undermining critical international institutions that provide lifesaving support for people in crisis all around the world,” Oxfam America CEO Abby Maxman said in the hours after the US election results became clear.
Aid funding under Trump will almost certainly be more politicised than it already is – its largesse more explicitly tied to national interests, its cuts used as a cudgel.
Trump’s first term in office suggests UN agencies may again be under fire, though not evenly so. Elsewhere, already fraught budget forecasts for the coming years become more uncertain for those who depend on US funding and networks.
A new Trump administration could use its levers to redistribute funding within the aid system along ideological lines – away from the perceived excesses of Big Aid, towards selectively chosen faith-based groups, and returning to strict conditions that penalise and defund programmes focused on reproductive health.
And on the eve of the COP29 climate summit, activists say Trump’s return bodes ill for recent gains on addressing climate inequities and loss and damages caused by global inaction.
Here are four broad trends humanitarians may be eyeing:
Aid funding: Eggs in one basket
Trump 2.0 again exposes the weakness behind an international aid funding model that is dependent on voluntary grants from a handful of government donors. The United States is at the very top of this short list.
The US contributes large portions of funding to key UN agencies like the World Food Programme, the refugee agency UNHCR, the migration agency IOM, and the World Health Organization.
More tellingly, its funding dominates entire sectors of humanitarian action. For example, the US contributed about 44% of humanitarian funding for food security last year, according to the UN service that tracks aid financing.
Simply put, US funding dominates humanitarian aid, and volatile swings in funding from the world’s biggest donor can hamstring an entire sector.
In his first term in office, Trump sought deep cuts to US funding for: the UN Population Fund, or UNFPA; UNAIDS; the WHO; and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. He also aimed for cuts to UN peacekeeping.
This doesn’t mean all types of funding are at deep risk. Humanitarian food aid was not politically contentious under Trump, for example. Former WFP boss David Beasley was, after all, nominated during the Trump administration, and oversaw a sharp rise in fundraising (though current WFP head Cindy McCain has been a noted Trump critic).
Local aid: Redistributing the marbles
The Republican campaign platform is heavy on nativism and all-caps domestic policy, rather than foreign policy or international aid.
But some humanitarians are reading between the lines of the Project 2025 “presidential transition project” – the manifesto penned by the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank and often described as a right-wing blueprint for the Trump presidency.
Under this vision of multilateralism, humanitarian aid is “sustaining war economies” and “propping up malign regimes”, while humanitarians are reaping “billions of dollars in profits from diversions of our humanitarian assistance”.
The aid chapter, written by Max Primorac, a former USAID deputy under Trump, calls for a redistribution of funding away from UN agencies and big NGOs to local responders and, especially, faith-based groups.
“Local partners more ably navigate corrupt environments and are more likely to steer vulnerable populations away from dependence on aid toward self-sufficiency,” he writes.
“USAID should aggressively ramp down its partnerships with wasteful, costly, and politicised UN agencies, international NGOs, and Beltway contractors,” Primorac adds. “All new programs in Africa should build on existing local initiatives that enjoy the support of the African people.”
The seeming shift towards locally driven aid mirrors the years-long push for localisation, though stripped of its equity and decolonial underpinnings.
If Trump’s ire is focused at first on funding to UN agencies, it could deepen a subtle shift already under way in the sector. In recent years, the proportion of total humanitarian funding to UN agencies has fallen, while rising slightly for international NGOs.
Reproductive health: Return of the ‘global gag rule’
Another Trump administration could mark a return to prohibitions that handcuff aid organisations that work on women’s reproductive health – with disastrous consequences for people in crisis.
The so-called “global gag rule” bars US health funding from going to organisations that provide services, referrals, or advice related to abortion – even if it's with separate funding. Since the policy was created by the Reagan administration in the 1980s, the global gag rule has been repealed and reinstated in turn by successive Democrat and Republican presidents.
Trump actually expanded the policy during his first administration. Reproductive healthcare in crises is often overlooked as is, and advocates say the return of the global gag rule would be another step back.
“Trump’s election poses an existential and dangerous threat to women and girls across the world,” said Hannah Bond, co-CEO of ActionAid UK.
Research published this year by the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group, showed the global gag rule under Trump stalled or reversed reproductive health progress in Uganda and Ethiopia.
In Uganda for example, there was a rise in the number of women seeking care for complications from unsafe abortions.
Climate solutions: A spanner in the works
Trump’s return marks another likely roadblock for climate action, with COP29 set to begin next week in Azerbaijan.
During his first administration, Trump attempted to withdraw from the Paris Agreement climate accord. COP29 is seen as a pivotal summit for financing, as countries come together to thrash out new targets.
Climate financing, especially for the emerging field of loss and damage, is a controversial stumbling block for all governments, including those seen as relatively progressive.
Trump’s return adds another volatile variable for the next four years, just as the window for averting a climate catastrophe narrows.
“The world cannot afford for its largest historical carbon emitter and top fossil fuel producer to shirk its responsibility,” said Harjeet Singh of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. “By stepping back from climate commitments, Trump's actions threaten to unravel trust in a global system already strained by the indifference and inaction of wealthy nations.”
Edited by Andrew Gully.
