American Humanitarian Aid Must Serve American Interests—and Remain Under American Control

The State Department’s $3.8 billion commitment to U.N.-administered relief tests whether American compassion abroad remains accountable to American law, policy, and national interests.

The State Department’s decision to commit $3.8 billion in American humanitarian assistance to United Nations–administered funds raises a serious question of constitutional stewardship. Who ultimately controls how the U.N. system allocates and conditions those taxpayer dollars? In a recent Heritage Foundation report, my colleague in the Ben Franklin Fellowship, Max Primorac, brings that question into sharp focus. The issue is not whether the United States should respond to human suffering abroad; it should. The issue is whether American officials may transfer billions of taxpayer dollars to an international bureaucracy while surrendering the policy control and accountability that must accompany public funds. Primorac argues that the State Department crossed that line when it committed $3.8 billion to pooled humanitarian funds administered through the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA. The Department calls the arrangement a faster, more focused, and more accountable model across 21 crisis-affected countries. The dispute therefore concerns not humanitarian purpose, but who ultimately controls American assistance and its conditions.  

Having served within the Department of State, I recognize that the United States can use foreign assistance as an indispensable instrument of American diplomacy, but only when it directs that assistance toward clear and legitimate national interests. Properly administered, humanitarian aid can relieve suffering, strengthen allies, advance stability, counter hostile influence, reduce migration pressures, contain public-health threats, and demonstrate the generosity of the American people. These benefits justify assistance when they reinforce the security, credibility, values, and strategic objectives of the United States.  

To be clear, that principle does not reduce compassion to calculation. It recognizes the obligations of public stewardship. Federal officials do not administer private charitable funds. They exercise authority over public resources entrusted to them for public purposes. Congress controls appropriations, while the President and executive agencies must administer those funds consistently with law. The Ben Franklin Fellowship’s principles reinforce this constitutional structure: diplomacy must serve the national interest; limited resources require careful stewardship; the State Department remains accountable to Congress and the American people; and multinational institutions deserve support when they advance the security and prosperity of sovereign nations. Multilateral cooperation can extend American reach and share burdens. It should never give an international institution an effective veto over American policy.

Christian teaching sharpens this distinction between personal charity and governmental action. Scripture repeatedly commands individual believers and the Church to care for the poor, the stranger, the widow, the orphan, and all who suffer. Christ identifies love of neighbor as a central obligation of discipleship. The Good Samaritan does not ask whether the wounded man falls within his political community before offering aid. James warns against professing faith while withholding food and clothing from those in need. These commands bind the Christian conscience. They call believers to act sacrificially, generously, and personally.

Government, however, occupies a different office and bears different responsibilities. Scripture does not assign the civil magistrate the same vocation it assigns the Church or the individual believer. Government acts through law, taxation, and coercive authority. It does not distribute resources that officials themselves have earned or voluntarily given; it spends funds collected from the public and entrusted to it for public purposes. A Christian may give beyond prudence, absorb personal loss, or act from mercy without demanding repayment. A public official may not exercise the same freedom with resources that belong to others.

This distinction does not absolve government of concern for human suffering. Civil authority may properly respond to famine, disaster, displacement, disease, and instability when doing so protects innocent life, advances justice, preserves peace, or serves legitimate national interests. Indeed, wise humanitarian assistance may reflect both moral seriousness and sound statecraft. But government must pursue those ends within the limits of its constitutional authority and with careful regard for stewardship, accountability, and the common good of the people it serves.

The biblical mandate to love one’s neighbor therefore does not provide a blank check for government spending. Nor does it justify transferring public resources to institutions that resist lawful conditions or frustrate public accountability. Christians should resist the temptation to treat government programs as a substitute for personal obedience. Voting to spend another person’s money does not discharge the believer’s duty to give, serve, welcome, and sacrifice.

At the same time, constitutional restraint should never become an excuse for indifference. The proper distinction is not between compassion and responsibility, but between the distinct callings through which each must operate. The Christian gives because Christ commands love of neighbor. The Church serves as an expression of mercy, fellowship, and witness. Government acts to secure justice, preserve order, protect the nation, and advance the public good. Each may address human suffering, but each must do so according to the authority, resources, and responsibilities entrusted to it.

That distinction strengthens rather than weakens the case for principled humanitarian aid. It reminds policymakers that good intentions cannot replace lawful authority, measurable results, or fidelity to the national interest. It also reminds Christians that no government program can relieve them of the personal obligation to see the suffering, approach the wounded, and bear the cost of mercy themselves.

To be sure, the State Department offers an empathetic defense of the OCHA arrangement. Under the initial $2 billion commitment, State and OCHA report that funds supported 18 crises, targeted more than 21 million people, directed more than 90 percent of assistance toward the most severe needs, and allocated roughly 88 percent of available resources within four months. The Department also points to country-level agreements, accountability teams, public dashboards, and faster award times. Those achievements matter. A serious analysis should not dismiss food delivered, water restored, or lives protected just because an international institution administered the funds.  But efficiency and accountability answer different questions. A program may move money quickly while leaving unresolved who receives it, what conditions follow it, whether it advances American interests, and whether the U.S. can uncover diversion or misconduct. The Department’s new model may improve performance, but speed alone cannot establish fidelity to American law and policy.

An Inspector General’s findings therefore deserve close attention. In January 2025, before the new OCHA agreement, the USAID Inspector General identified resistance from U.N. agencies to sharing information about potential misconduct, weaknesses in antiterrorism vetting, and gaps in sub-award data. The report demonstrates the risk environment the new agreement must overcome.  

The details are sobering. Between October 2019 and June 2024, the World Food Programme reported 519 potential-misconduct matters to USAID but disclosed only 29 directly to the Inspector General, despite award terms requiring prompt reporting. Investigators also encountered delays and refusals when seeking information from U.N. agencies, which sometimes invoked privileges and immunities. The Inspector General further reported that USAID lacked a comprehensive database of sub-awardees and that U.N. entities received less rigorous partner vetting than nongovernmental organizations and contractors. Those deficiencies impede investigations and make it harder to determine whether aid has reached terrorist organizations, corrupt actors, or organizations barred by American policy.

The conflict over policy conditions presents an even more fundamental issue. In January 2026, the State Department adopted final rules requiring foreign-assistance award terms addressing abortion, gender ideology, and discriminatory equity ideology. The Department adopted those rules to advance American national interests. They generally apply to international organizations, require applicable conditions to flow down to sub-recipients, and permit waivers when national-security or foreign-policy interests justify them. 

Human Rights Watch reported that the expanded Mexico City Policy on abortion did not apply to the initial $2 billion OCHA commitment and that OCHA chief Tom Fletcher would refuse future American funds carrying the new conditions. Three days after that report, State announced another $1.8 billion for the OCHA model. The State Department’s public announcement emphasized oversight and efficiency but did not explain the scope, legal basis, or downstream operation of any waivers. Primorac, citing Devex, reports that the Department granted OCHA waivers from the expanded Mexico City Policy and related directives. That arrangement demands a public accounting. A lawful waiver may sometimes serve the national interest during an urgent crisis. But a waiver should rest on stated findings, remain narrowly tailored, identify substitute safeguards, and permit meaningful congressional oversight. When an international official announces that he, not the elected U.S. government, will decide which American conditions he will accept, the dispute concerns sovereignty, not administrative detail.

OCHA may answer that donor conditions compromise humanitarian neutrality and independence. While the United States should not turn emergency food or medicine into political patronage, humanitarian independence does not create an entitlement to American funds. OCHA remains free to reject American conditions; the United States, acting through its elected branches and subject to governing law, remains free to direct its assistance elsewhere. Neutrality cannot require the United States to subsidize activities inconsistent with its interests, laws, or policies.  

Primorac also raises a related concern about mission drift. He documents OCHA funding to other U.N. entities, including the United Nations Population Fund. UNFPA’s 2026 appeal seeks more than $1 billion for so-called reproductive-health and protection programming. While some of that work concerns things like maternal care and safe childbirth, pooled funding can blur the line between legitimate lifesaving care and broader abortion-related advocacy or programming that conflicts with American policy. That is why program-integrity requirements, financial separation, traceable sub-awards, and enforceable flow-down conditions matter.  

Moreover, the problem extends beyond one recipient or one policy dispute. OCHA incorporates ideological priorities into the humanitarian system itself. Its published policies place gender equality, sexual orientation and gender identity, climate action, and related inclusion objectives within the framework through which humanitarian needs are assessed and grants are administered. OCHA may describe these commitments as humanitarian principles. The elected American government has reached a different policy judgment. It has directed that foreign assistance must not finance abortion, gender ideology, discriminatory equity programs, or climate initiatives that do not advance American interests.

That conflict cannot be dismissed as a disagreement over terminology. The President directs the foreign policy of the United States within the constitutional and statutory framework established by Congress. Executive agencies may not nullify that policy by transferring funds to an international intermediary and allowing the intermediary to finance what the government has prohibited directly. A pooled fund does not cleanse an otherwise prohibited expenditure. Nor should an international bureaucracy acquire through a waiver the authority to disregard conditions that bind American agencies and their other recipients.

The concern becomes greater when OCHA grants flow to large U.S.-based nongovernmental organizations that engage in domestic advocacy, including advocacy surrounding election policy and voter mobilization. One must precisely state the evidence here. An OCHA award does not by itself prove that humanitarian dollars financed partisan election activity. Money, however, remains fungible. Government support for one part of an organization’s operations can preserve institutional capacity and free other resources for political advocacy. At a minimum, the State Department should identify every American-based recipient and subrecipient, disclose its affiliated entities, and determine whether continued support indirectly strengthens organizations that work against the policies of the elected government providing the funds.

This is precisely why foreign assistance must remain tied to American national interests and values. The United States need not finance every organization capable of delivering aid. It should choose partners that relieve suffering effectively, respect human dignity, comply with American law and policy, and do not use the institutional strength sustained by American taxpayers to undermine American interests at home or abroad.

The international-relations lesson is straightforward. Multilateral institutions can coordinate donors and operate where direct American access remains limited. But multilateralism cannot mean predominantly American financing under non-American control. Primorac reports that the United States supplied roughly three-quarters of OCHA’s pooled funds at the time of his analysis. A nation providing that degree of support should demand transparency, burden sharing, and policy alignment with American interests commensurate with its contribution.  

In my view, the State Department should, therefore, stop further funding to OCHA unless the agency agrees, without qualification, to comply with American law, presidential foreign-assistance policy, and meaningful American oversight. A temporary pause may provide an opportunity to secure those guarantees. Any future agreement should require complete identification of grantees and subrecipients, timely access for inspectors general, rigorous antiterrorism screening, full accounting of cumulative overhead, and enforceable suspension, recovery, and termination provisions.

But if OCHA continues to reject American conditions, the United States should end the arrangement and redirect its humanitarian assistance through accountable partners that will advance both urgent human needs and legitimate American interests. At the same time, the United States should build alternatives. American embassies should identify capable local organizations, especially faith-based institutions that possess trust, language skills, and durable community networks. State should expand the personnel needed to supervise direct awards, use fixed-amount agreements where appropriate, reserve OCHA channels for crises in which the organization provides distinct operational value and accepts American conditions, and press other developed nations to carry a fairer share.

Such a course would restore principled humanitarian leadership in service to American interests. Compassion without accountability becomes sentimentality. Generosity without stewardship can finance the very interests America seeks to oppose. Multilateralism without sovereignty becomes abdication. A constitutional republic may act mercifully abroad, but it must act prudently, lawfully, and in service to the American people. Human dignity overseas and constitutional fidelity at home are not competing obligations. The same moral seriousness demands both.

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Bibliography

Constitutional and Legal Authorities

Congressional Research Service, Constitution Annotated. “Overview of the Appropriations Clause.” Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Library of Congress.Supports the article’s explanation that Congress controls the authorization and appropriation of public funds and that federal officials administer public money subject to law. (Congress.gov)

Congressional Research Service, Constitution Annotated. “Overview of the Spending Clause.” Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Library of Congress.Supports the constitutional authority of Congress to tax and spend for the common defense and general welfare and to impose conditions on federal expenditures. (Congress.gov)

Congressional Research Service, Constitution Annotated. “Impounding Appropriated Funds.” Constitution Annotated: Analysis and Interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Library of Congress.Provides background on the Executive Branch’s obligation under the Take Care Clause to administer appropriated funds consistently with governing law. (Congress.gov)

U.S. Department of State. “Protecting Life in Foreign Assistance.” Final Rule, 2 C.F.R. pt. 602, 91 Fed. Reg. 3319, January 27, 2026.Establishes foreign-assistance award conditions implementing the expanded Mexico City Policy; addresses international organizations, flow-down requirements, financial separation, and national-security or foreign-policy waivers. (Federal Register)

U.S. Department of State. “Combating Gender Ideology in Foreign Assistance.” Final Rule, 2 C.F.R. pt. 603, 91 Fed. Reg. 3332, January 27, 2026.Establishes award conditions restricting the use of State Department foreign-assistance funds to promote gender ideology and provides for waivers when the Secretary determines that national-security or foreign-policy interests require them. (Federal Register)

U.S. Department of State. “Combating Discriminatory Equity Ideology in Foreign Assistance Rules.” Final Rule, 2 C.F.R. pt. 604, 91 Fed. Reg. 3345, January 27, 2026.Establishes award conditions applicable to nongovernmental organizations, international organizations, foreign governments, and other recipients concerning discriminatory equity ideology. (Federal Register)

U.S. Department of State. “60-Day Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Foreign Assistance Requirements.” 91 Fed. Reg., April 6, 2026.Confirms that the three January 2026 final rules form part of the Department’s “Protecting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance” policy and require recipients to accept specified terms and conditions. (Federal Register)

State Department and Federal Oversight Materials

U.S. Department of State. “More Lives Saved for Fewer Taxpayer Dollars: Trump Administration Leads Humanitarian Reset in the United Nations.” December 29, 2025.Documents the original agreement between the United States and OCHA and the initial $2 billion American commitment to the Humanitarian Reset. It also states the Department’s position that the arrangement would improve impact, efficiency, prioritization, and taxpayer accountability. (State Department)

U.S. Department of State. Historic Memorandum of Understanding with UN OCHA to Advance UN Humanitarian Reforms: Results Presentation. May 2026.Supports the Department’s reported performance figures: $1.71 billion allocated, approximately 88 percent of available funding; allocations completed in 16 of 18 countries; 22 million people targeted; 80 implementing partners; 220 projects; and approximately 92 percent of targeted beneficiaries located in the areas of greatest need. (State Department)

U.S. Department of State. “United States Pledges Additional $1.8 Billion in Life-Saving Humanitarian Funding to OCHA’s Humanitarian Reset and Shares Powerful Results from the Trump Administration’s U.N. Humanitarian Reform Agreement.” May 14, 2026.Documents the second $1.8 billion commitment and brings total announced American support for the OCHA arrangement to $3.8 billion in 21 countries. It also presents the Department’s defense of the model as faster, more focused, and more accountable. (State Department)

U.S. Department of State. “Cooperation Between the United States Department of State and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.” Foreign Press Center Briefing, May 2026.Provides the Department’s explanation of the arrangement, its emphasis on hyper-prioritized lifesaving work, its asserted reduction of bureaucracy and overhead, and its relationship to American national interests. (State Department)

U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General. Challenges to Accountability and Transparency Within USAID-Funded Programs. Memorandum from Inspector General Paul K. Martin to Acting Administrator Jason Gray and Chief of Staff Matt Hopson, January 23, 2025.Documents resistance by U.N. agencies and foreign nongovernmental organizations to sharing information with American investigators; limitations in antiterrorism and corruption vetting; incomplete subaward data; delays and refusals in responding to investigative requests; and assertions of privileges and immunities. It also reports that the World Food Programme disclosed 519 potential-misconduct matters to USAID but only 29 directly to the Inspector General between October 2019 and June 2024. (Office of Inspector General)

U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General. Additional Observations on Challenges to Oversight and Accountability over Foreign Assistance as a Whole. May 2025.Provides additional support for the article’s concern that the volume of assistance administered through U.N. agencies creates substantial oversight, reporting, vetting, and investigative-access challenges. (Office of Inspector General)

United Nations and OCHA Materials

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “OCHA-Managed Humanitarian Funds Receive Landmark US$2 Billion Contribution from the United States.” December 29, 2025.Confirms OCHA’s receipt of the original American commitment and states OCHA’s understanding of the contribution’s role in supporting humanitarian operations around the world. (UNOCHA)

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Country-Based Pooled Funds.”Explains the structure and purpose of OCHA’s country-based pooled funds, including the allocation of donor resources at the country level according to humanitarian plans, identified needs, and priorities. (UNOCHA)

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Country-Based Pooled Funds Data Hub.Provides current information on donor contributions, allocations, implementing organizations, projects, sectors, and recipients. It supports examination of American contributions, OCHA allocations, and the organizations receiving pooled funds. (Country Based Pooled Funds Data Hub)

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Statement on U.S. Funding by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.” May 14, 2026.Presents OCHA’s position that the original $2 billion stabilized humanitarian operations, accelerated allocations, sharpened prioritization, and strengthened accountability; it also acknowledges the additional $1.8 billion commitment. (UNOCHA)

Fletcher, Tom. “Remarks to the Press on U.S. Humanitarian Funding.” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, May 14, 2026.Supports the assertions that the first American tranche covered 18 crises, substantially increased available pooled funding, and expanded or created pooled funds in several countries. (UNOCHA)

United Nations Population Fund Materials

United Nations Population Fund. 2026 Humanitarian Action Overview. 2025.Documents UNFPA’s $1 billion appeal to reach approximately 34 million women, girls, and young people in more than 40 countries through sexual and reproductive health services and gender-based-violence prevention and response programming. (United Nations Population Fund)

United Nations Population Fund. “2026 Humanitarian Needs Factsheet.”Provides UNFPA’s account of the reproductive-health, maternal-health, displacement, and gender-based-violence needs its humanitarian programs seek to address. This source supports the article’s acknowledgment that some UNFPA work includes maternal care, safe childbirth, and protection for victims of sexual violence. (United Nations Population Fund)

United Nations Population Fund. “Five Ways UNFPA’s Humanitarian Work Supports Women and Girls in the World’s Biggest Crises.” 2025.Confirms the scope and stated purposes of UNFPA’s 2026 appeal and describes the organization as the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. (United Nations Population Fund)

Commentary and Independent Reporting

Primorac, Max. “The State Department Must Stop Funding a Radical U.N. ‘Humanitarian’ Agency.” Heritage Foundation, 2026.The principal report examined in the article. It supports the discussion of the $3.8 billion OCHA arrangement; the contention that the Department relinquished too much control over American assistance; OCHA grants to U.N. entities including UNFPA; the reported policy waivers; the relative size of the American contribution; and the recommendations for direct funding, faith-based partnerships, stronger oversight, and fixed-amount awards. (The Heritage Foundation)

Human Rights Watch. “UN Official Would Reject U.S. Funds with Discriminatory Conditions.” May 11, 2026.Reports OCHA chief Tom Fletcher’s statement that he would reject future American contributions carrying specified U.S. policy conditions. It also reports that the expanded Mexico City Policy did not govern the initial $2 billion OCHA commitment. The article uses this source as evidence of the policy dispute, not as endorsement of Human Rights Watch’s characterization of the American conditions. (Human Rights Watch)

Note: All internet sources were last reviewed on August 3, 2026. Figures drawn from dynamic OCHA dashboards reflect the data available on that date and may change as contributions, allocations, and project reporting continue.