At the start of 2026, the White House declared that it was withdrawing from a raft of international organizations, covering areas of supposed global cooperation from education to aid to climate change. As with much that comes from the current administration, this announcement was deceptive: not only had the United States already disengaged and withdrawn funding from many of these bodies, but it has also long been actively undermining their operation.
Perhaps the starkest example concerned the United States’ international aid budget. In 2025, massive cuts led to the UN World Food Program cutting upward of 30 percent of its staff, while the international body responsible for refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), declared it would downsize, cutting positions and reducing expenditure. In this new world, Donald Trump warned that the UN and its agencies must “adapt, shrink or die.”
This is not a new crisis for the UN and its refugee agency. It is, however, a dramatic escalation.
In 2024, the number of forcibly displaced people reached a record high of 122.6 million, 32 million of whom are refugees under the UNHCR’s mandate. While the numbers of those forced from their homes has often fluctuated, there have been more dramatic increases since 2010 and, especially, since 2020, driven increasingly by environmental disasters.
Around a fifth of refugees end up in camps, where they are often stuck for a decade or more. But while refugee numbers have exploded, funding to support them has not. The UNHCR has rarely had sufficient funding. Now it is in a deep financial crisis. While its target for funding in 2025 was US$10.6 billion, it had only managed to raise $3.5 billion. This shortfall will put millions at risk of harm.
Climate change is one of the central drivers of displacement, both directly through environmental crises and indirectly as conflicts over resources — from water to critical minerals used for “green” technologies…
Auteur: Nicholas Beuret
