Too often, nefarious actors are thwarting humanitarian efforts and wasting U.S. taxpayers’ money.
Too often, nefarious actors are thwarting humanitarian efforts and wasting U.S. taxpayers’ money.
T here will doubtless be much that President Trump will want to highlight when he addresses the United Nations tomorrow. The world is awash in troubles. But he should take time to alert the organization that the U.S. will not tolerate misuse or diversion of U.S. taxpayer dollars. New evidence of the troubling links between Hamas and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) continues to be exposed — including aid being diverted to make weapons, hostages being held in UNRWA facilities, and UNRWA employees engaging in terrorist attacks. But the failures that have plagued UNRWA are far from unique. They are replayed again and again in countries across the world, where humanitarian assistance intended to save innocent lives is being diverted by nefarious actors to take those lives instead.
Case in point: A new trove of documents uncovered by the Washington Post reveals that Sudan’s authoritarian regime built a secret stockpile of chemical weapons using chlorine that had been supplied to the country by UNICEF, CARE, and the Red Cross to provide safe drinking water for Sudanese civilians. Cellphone video taken by senior Sudanese officers shows weapons tests in the desert “producing plumes of green-yellow vapor,” and intercepted communications between regime officials indicate that the country’s security forces had stockpiled as many as 290 chemical munitions — some of which were reportedly used against rebel forces.
These cases, and dozens more, make clear that relying on organizations with interest in downplaying scandals is a recipe for U.S. taxpayer dollars to be wasted, stolen, diverted to unintended purposes — or, worse yet, used to harm Americans. Organizations that must stay in the good graces of a governing power cannot be relied on to police themselves. Oversight should sit with donors, and in the case of U.S. taxpayer funding, with the U.S. government. But right now, the American oversight system is being eroded from within.
Here’s how to fix it.
Proper oversight requires diligence on the part of policymakers. The Department of State Inspector General found in a recent audit that foreign assistance programs funded by the Department’s Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) bureau “did not develop and implement appropriate measures to mitigate risks” that selected PRM–funded activities could benefit terrorist groups.
This pattern of negligence also afflicts a massive $3.8 billion contribution of U.S. funding over the past nine months to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). We have argued that relying on OCHA to administer U.S. humanitarian assistance shifts control from the U.S. to the U.N. and defangs independent U.S. oversight.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration recently signed a memorandum of understanding with OCHA that grants the agency unprecedented deference on whether to report serious allegations of fraud, corruption, and terrorist diversion to U.S. authorities. Under the agreement, U.S. Inspectors General do not have direct access to information related to potential criminal activity involving U.S. funds as required by laws signed by President Trump. A July OCHA report simply labeled “resolved” well over a third of the 48 incidents of fraud, diversion, or sexual abuse involving U.S. funding without disclosing any findings, discipline, or law-enforcement referrals to the U.S. government.
This model based on “self-reporting” is unacceptable — leaving the U.S. and other donors unable to trace supplies, inspect records, or determine what actually happened. Independent investigations and U.S. oversight are imperative — so that we can ensure accountability and, when necessary, prosecution for criminal malfeasance.
When the U.S. government has access to information, it has acted to stop abuse of taxpayer dollars. In Syria, for example, a USAID investigation led to the suspension of a $44.6 million program after employees placed terrorist fighters on beneficiary lists and resulted in the prosecution of a terrorist linked to al-Qaeda. In Yemen, U.S. oversight prompted WFP to suspend assistance when Houthi authorities rejected controls. Oversight produced action.
This is why Congress enacted provisions in 2024 and again in 2026 requiring all multilateral entities receiving State Department funds to agree to global oversight access to U.S. inspectors general. But in Gaza, the State Department Inspector General found that the Office of the Legal Adviser was complicit in ignoring U.S. law and allowing U.S. funding to flow despite glaring information about UNRWA’s links to Hamas. (The online version of this report is redacted, but the original, the details of which were shared with us, lays out in detail the circumvention of congressional intent.)
According to Congress, the same legal office signed off on the disastrous memorandum of understanding with OCHA undermining U.S. oversight and control — and is now seeking to restrict the USAID Inspector General from accessing information on misconduct affecting new programs funded by State.
Humanitarian crises rarely arise where the rule of law prevails. So, when evidence establishes that U.S. funds were unlawfully diverted, it is the responsibility of the U.S. government to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute the offending parties. Deferring to U.N. agencies to police themselves will lead to more support for terrorism, more corruption, more diversion — and ultimately more American deaths.
Danielle Pletka is a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the host, with Marc Thiessen, of the podcast What the Hell Is Going On? and the related Substack. Brett Schaefer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute focusing on the United Nations and international organizations.