Trump Doubles Down on Gaza Cruelty With Threat to Cut UN World Food Program Funding if the UN Rejects US Scheme (and a BRICS Note)

Those bothered by the New World Order According to Trump may have specific triggers. Mine is the way Trump has managed to make the moral cesspool of our support of Israel’s genocide even more mephitic and wantonly cruel. The Biden Administration had enough self-awareness to feign discomfort even as it backed Israel’s monstrous conduct. The Trump Team might be mindful of overextension with Iran and the Houthis. But the Trump Administration has largely shared Israel’s lack of inhibitions, indeed, apparent glee in the crude application of force to make the utterly wretched lives of Gazans (or more accurately, what is left of them) even more horror-filled. I wish I could to resign from the human race.

And of course, that’s not enough, not remotely enough. Yet brave sacrifices by those more noble than I am, from doctors and medics and ambulance drivers and journalists who have gone to Gaza and been tortured, killed, or survived with have life-changing injuries, to protestors beaten up, arrested, and threatened with an end of their pursuit of a degree, to Aaron Bushnell, have not seemed to slow the acceleration of the genocide juggernaut.

As most of you know, Israel has greatly upped the intensity of its starvation campaign and is having wonderful success, as the proliferation of worse-than-Biafra starving children images attests.

So in the small-bore Team Trump variant of “Never let a crisis go to waste,” which is, “Always use pushback to justify more bullying,” the Administration is using the well-warranted uproar over the starvation campaign to kick the UN bigly while stomping on Palestinians.

Oh, yessiree bob, the US has a plan to feed the Gazans. But it must be a US run plan, with shadowy new armed Israeli contractors distributing the aid. And if the UN does not capitulate, the US will cut the UN budget, not just for UNRWA, but also for the much bigger, both in funding and populations served, World Food Program.

Now perhaps you can squint and see something positive here. The spectacle of starving children has gotten so ugly that even the Trump Administration has to pretend it’s going to Do Something to feed them. And this is another drop in the drip-drip-drip of undermining Netanyahu, since the US action demonstrates that his government was part of a problem but is not part of this solution.

We’ll turn later to an issue this gimmick raises. Where is the Global South, as in BRICS? South Africa bravely lodged its case with the ICJ and created a well-warranted furor. But now Trump is threatening to cut the funding of a major UN initiative that feeds populations well beyond those in Gaza. Perhaps there are some counter-measures being planned, but this strikes me an another case of the so-called Global South having serious and not-sufficiently acknowledged issues in moving beyond immediate BRICS goals of collaborating to create bi-lateral payments systems.

Highlights from the Financial Times’ Trump team gives ultimatum to UN over Gaza aid plan. First to what the plan amounts to. It actually is an Israeli scheme, just not one with the Israel government having a formal role:

Israel halted the entry of all food, water, and other essentials to Gaza in early March, after Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ended a two-month ceasefire in the shattered Palestinian enclave…

The Israeli government imposed the siege in a bid to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds in Gaza, alleging that the group was siphoning aid for its own fighters and to sell on the black market.

Israeli officials, in co-ordination with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a little-known entity incorporated in Switzerland in February, have devised a new plan to funnel aid into the enclave with the assistance of US private military contractors that they claim will circumvent Hamas.

The UN on Sunday rejected the scheme as not fulfilling the “core fundamental humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality, and independent delivery of aid”….

In a GHF proposal seen by the Financial Times, the group says their scheme will provide assistance through the initial establishment of four “Secure Distribution Sites”. These would be set up in southern Gaza and secured by armed private contractors.

According to the proposal and several people briefed on the plan, Palestinians will be invited to the distribution sites, most likely on a weekly basis, to pick-up “pre-packaged rations, hygiene kits, and medical supplies”.

GHF has budgeted $1.30 per meal, including the cost of logistics, which it claims will be enough to provide every “at-risk civilian” with a 1,750 calorie meal.

There is plenty of reason to be suspicious, starting with Israel having before gunned down Gazans trying to pick up food at a distribution site in what is now called the Flour Massacre.

And some takes from Twitter:

A Hamas official suggests this eyewash is to burnish Trump’s image right before his Middle East visit:

Next, and here the pink paper give commendable coverage, is how the Trump Administration is bullying the UN to fall into line:

Donald Trump’s aides have threatened the UN and other international humanitarian groups with funding cuts and other sanctions if they do not back a new US-led aid plan for war-torn Gaza, according to people familiar with the matter…

The most significant threats were directed towards the World Food Program (WFP) and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, the largest aid providers in Gaza, according to three people familiar with Witkoff’s conversations.

The WFP was told that the US, its largest donor, would sever funding that currently makes up some 40 per cent of its budget, a step that would endanger programs in trouble spots such as Sudan and Bangladesh.

According to one person familiar with WFP deliberations, the agency’s director Cindy McCain has stood “firm”. “It was a hard no [from her],” the person said. A WFP spokesperson did not return emails seeking comment…

UNOPS, the key logistics agency inside the global body, also faced US threats of a funding freeze.

Based on a fast look, the World Food Program looks to be another one of those odd public-private initiatives. It says all of its money comes from voluntary donations. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 and But it is substantial, having raised $8.3 billion and assisting 152 million people in 2023. But its current funding level is well short of its needs, projected at over $16 billion for 2025. There is a lot of hunger out there!

UN officials seem divided on what to do. Again from the pink paper:

“Either way Israel and the US wins,” said the senior UN official. “Either the UN caves and plays along, compromising its humanitarian principles and neutrality, or the UN leaves and Israel gets to do this anyway with other partners.”

A second senior UN official, who does not support the new Gaza aid scheme, still criticised the global body for not engaging with Israel. “We prefer to remain religiously pious and not attend any talks on Gaza,” they said. “There’s an order from the top . . . they would rather die as heroes and show that we don’t blink under pressure.”

Now to my BRICS speech. Where is the Global South on this? Many countries look set to become collateral damage if the UN holds fast and the US does indeed seriously lower World Food Programme donations.

I will admit that my initial reaction shows that I have fallen for BRICS boosterism, as in many who are keen to see it succeed are projecting ambitions upon it that go well beyond any commitments so far.

In fact, the Kazan Declaration reaffirmed the central role of the UN, BRICS does not intend to supplant it but (somehow over time) to play a greater role in governance, as in a slow-motion (presumed not hostile) takeover:

5. We welcome the considerable interest by countries of the Global South in BRICS and we endorse the Modalities of BRICS Partner Country Category…We commit to further promoting BRICS institutional development.

6. We note the emergence of new centres of power, policy decision-making and economic growth, which can pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic and balanced multipolar world order…we reaffirm our commitment to multilateralism and upholding the international law, including the Purposes and Principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN) as its indispensable cornerstone, and the central role of the UN in the international system

If you search the Kazan Declaration on “food,” there are 7 hits. Many are to support the development of improved practices, such as:

114. We welcome the enlargement of the BRICS Network University as well as expansion of its research areas including mathematics, natural sciences, social and humanitarian sciences, sustainable agriculture and food security, health sciences. We agree to explore opportunities of cooperation between the BRICS member states to promote the development of the framework for mutual recognition of qualifications. We support continued dialogue on quality evaluation systems for BRICS universities,in line with their national education systems

There are also references to “unilateral coercive measures, including illegal sanctions” which means the Western sanctions on Russia, which among other things, interfered with Russian sales and supply of fertilizer, particularly to countries in Africa. There are also apple pie and motherhood statements about supporting smallholder farmers.

None are about emergency hunger relief. There are only two mentions of hunger, again backing initiatives in a general way.

So why are no BRICS members proposing to step in and make the US look bad? This could be a great way to undercut US power at key UN institutions.

Sadly, BRICS cannot do so as BRICS. BRICS has no budget. It is perhaps best thought of as an economic forum, even though many commentators (and I have too often made that mistake) tend to think of it as an organization.

But this is a long winded way of saying that if BRICS members, or the Global South, or whatever group of non Collective West states intend to have more influence over the behavior of major international organizations, they need to step up their funding in return for greater vote share. Or as the World Food Program case indicates, hollow out US/EU influence by moving towards dominating the funding, and thus the operation, of initiatives that are particularly important to Global South members.

Yes, this sort of takeover will be a slow process. But I don’t yet see much thought, let alone effort, being devoted to haw to make that happen. I’d be delighted to be prove wrong. Any readers who can do so, please pipe up in comments.