The Trump administration has issued what amounts to a loyalty test to private charities, nonprofits, and multiple United Nations’ agencies, asking that they declare whether they have ever worked with “entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any parties that espouses anti-American beliefs.”
The request is included in a list of some 23 questions posed to recipients of United States funding as part of the State Department’s review of foreign aid. The questionnaire — one of a number of almost identical question sets distributed to U.S. aid recipients — appears to serve as something of a litmus test to ensure that awardees of U.S. assistance conform to the Trump administration’s “America First” foreign policy.
The move marks an extraordinary intrusion into the internal workings of the U.N. agencies, which are required by the U.N. Charter to act independently of member states. The questionnaire asks whether the U.N. and aid agencies or aid groups have clear policies prohibiting activities that “advocate or implement policies contrary to U.S. government interests, national security, and sovereignty.”
About the author
Colum Lynch
Colum Lynch is an award-winning reporter and Senior Global Reporter for Devex. He covers the intersection of development, diplomacy, and humanitarian relief at the United Nations and beyond. Prior to Devex, Colum reported on foreign policy and national security for Foreign Policy Magazine and the Washington Post. Colum was awarded the 2011 National Magazine Award for digital reporting for his blog Turtle Bay. He has also won an award for groundbreaking reporting on the U.N.’s failure to protect civilians in Darfur.
