Obama's last money shower for the UN: some $9.2 billion
In its last year in office, the Obama Administration showered at least some $9.2 billion on the
United Nations and its sprawling array of organizations, according to a document recently
posted on the State Department website.
The total is gleaned from a document that summarizes U.S. government spending for international
organizations, and is about 20 per cent higher than the $7.7 billion figure given out by
State for 2010, before the Obama Administration abruptly quit providing any overall tally
for its U.N. support.
The overall U.S. bill for international organizations of every stripe is just under $10.5 billion,
meaning that U.N. organizations absorb about 88 per cent of such U.S. government spending.
The new tally includes nearly $360 million for the controversial United Nations Relief
and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, which is regularly
accused of inculcating violent anti-Israel attitudes and even abetting terrorist attacks
on Israel, which it strongly denies.
That is nearly a 50 per cent jump over the $238.3 million UNRWA got from the U.S. in
2010.
(Last week, the Trump Administration froze a last-minute, $221 million donation by the
Obama Administration that was intended for the Palestinian Authority.)
The UNRWA numbers, along with all the rest of the U.N. donations, are likely to come
under fierce scrutiny in the weeks ahead, both from the Trump Administration, which
wants to take a tough look at aligning its U.N. spending with national interests, and
from Congress, which is frustrated by U.N. bloat and inefficiency, and often maddened
by its anti-Israel biases.
At the same time, U.N. appeals for funds, especially humanitarian money to deal with
a swamp of international crises and conflicts, are still on the rise.
On Jan. 31, for example, UNICEF announced a new, $3.4 billion appeal, including $1.4
billion slated for Syria and surrounding countries, that the agency says will target some 535
million children next year.
But from a U.S. point of view, "there is a new sheriff in town," noted Robert Wexler,
a former Democratic congressman from Florida and a U.N. supporter who testified on Feb.
1 , along with some sharp U.N. critics, before a subcommittee hearing of the House Foreign
Relations Committee.
The hearing focused on the U.N.'s anti-Israel biases, and specifically on UNRWA, whose recent
alleged misdeeds were laid out in detail by Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based
U.N. Watch, who told the legislators that "the U.S. Congress is the one reliable force
that can hold the U.N. to account."
That is, if the figures they see can be believed.
Critics are already noting that the State Department figures for U.N. support are less
than the full story-- at least $500 million in contributions to the U.N.-sponsored Green
Climate Fund, which Congress had opposed, are missing—and State itself admits that
"not all Executive Branch agencies provided information for inclusion in this report."
With the Green Climate Fund money included, the 2016 figure would amount to a nearly 26
per cent hike in U.N. support over 2010 levels.
(Another $500 million donation to the Green Climate Fund was also blocked at the last
minute by the Trump Administration.)
"This report was probably put together in hurried fashion," observes Brett Schaefer,
an expert on U.N. funding at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
He notes that its appearance was likely prompted by a congressional spending resolution last
December that demanded such figures once again be made public.
The State Department website now includes similarly disorganized spending numbers for
2015—when overall spending on international organizations hit $10.8 billion—and links
to more organized reports on spending that stretch back to 2007.
Pulling exact totals out of the State Department paperwork is a daunting task, as it does not
separate U.N. organizations and other international organizations that the U.S. voluntarily and
involuntarily funds.
In some cases, getting the numbers also involves analyzing ostensibly non-U.N. grants where
the money is then returned, via partnerships, to U.N. organizations.
The tallies, however, are virtually guaranteed never to match with their U.N. equivalents.
The State Department figures cover the government's fiscal year: October 1, 2015 to September
30, 2016.
U.N. Secretariat biennial budgets run from January 1 to December 31 each year.
U.N. annual peacekeeping budgets are prepared on a cycle from July 1 to June 30.
Other U.N. organizations may also vary.
Thus, for 2014—the latest year covered on a U.N. website for its top inter-agency coordinating
body—total U.S. contributions to the U.N. alone are tallied at $10.067 billion.
The State Department report for fiscal 2014 lists total U.S. contributions to all international
organizations at about $7.4 billion.
The U.S. spent about $2.6 billion on U.N. peacekeeping in fiscal 2016, according to
the State Department.
That would be 32.7 percent of the $7.9 billion U.N. peacekeeping budget for July 2016 to
June 30 2017—much more than the 28.57 per cent it is assessed for its peacekeeping "dues,"
and which many U.S. legislators already consider greatly excessive.
(The same $2.6 billion would be 31 per cent of the previous 2015-2016 peacekeeping budget
of $8.3 billion.)
Whatever the truth of the numbers, all of that money is likely to come under the skeptical
microscope of the Trump Administration, which is contemplating a tough review of any U.N.
spending that it deems outside the national interest—including steep cuts to "voluntary"
funding beyond U.S. dues-paying minimums.
UNRWA in particular may face harsh scrutiny.
A foretaste was provided at the Feb. 1 subcommittee hearing, where UN Watch in particular singled
out the agency in a 130-page report entitled Poisoning Palestinian Children.
The UN Watch document cites more than 40 Facebook pages that it claims were "operated by school
teachers, principals and other employees" of UNRWA, which it charges "incite to terrorism
or anti-Semitism."
UNRWA has vigorously denied such charges in the past.
UN Watch director Neuer claimed before the legislators that the UNRWA indictment was
only part of a "vast infrastructure the U.N. has constructed to demonize Israel."
There are plenty of other targets in the State Department tallies.
To name one: $67.9 million was spent in 2016 for the United Nations Population Fund, which
has become an automatic piñata when pro-life Republican Administrations are in power, and
the opposite under Democrats.
In 2010, the Obama Administration gave the Population Fund $51.4 million, according to
the State Department, which means the figure has been boosted by nearly a third.
But two years earlier, the number was zero.
And in his first week in office, President Trump announced restoration of the so-called
Mexico City Policy for global health assistance that cuts U.S. funding for non-government
organizations that offer abortion counselling or advocate for abortion rights in foreign
countries.
Like most U.N. organizations, the Population Fund is dependent on local organizations to
carry out its family planning work.
The fuel for many other impassioned battles can be seen in the State Department numbes.
In 2010, for example, the International Organization for Migration, devoted to "humane and orderly
migration," got $272.8 million from the U.S.
In 2016, now a full-fledged U.N. agency, it got $477.2 million, much of it in response
to the Syria crisis—upheaval which, in turn, has helped prompt a rethinking of immigration
policies by the Trump Administration.
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