TANZANIA – The Trump administration is requesting U.N. humanitarian agencies that are beneficiaries of U.S. funding to complete a survey divulging any connections to communism, socialism, or anti-American sentiments, as per U.S. and U.N. sources and a copy of the questionnaire acquired by The Associated Press.
UNICEF and the U.N. Refugee Agency, in addition to the other departments and branches at the recently dissolved U.S. Agency for International Development, were recipients of the survey, which inquired about various concerns of the Trump administration, such as whether any of the initiatives were advancing diversity, equality, and inclusion initiatives.
The breadth of distribution of the survey by the administration remains unclear, although it was authenticated by a current USAID employee, a U.S. official, and three U.N. representatives.
“I’m aware from some of our colleagues that a number of agencies have received these types of questionnaires,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday when asked about the survey.
The other officials spoke about the document on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
It is the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to root out what it calls “waste, fraud and abuse” in the federal government, including by reevaluating foreign assistance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration has cut 83% of programs overseas run by USAID, the main U.S. foreign aid agency.
While some questions in the survey touch on routine issues like whether a project has a risk management framework, others probe organizations’ stand on a range of hot-button issues for Republicans, including whether they provide any abortion-related care or do work on DEI or “gender ideology” issues.
The questionnaire asks respondents to confirm that “this is not a climate or ‘environmental justice’ project,” that the organization encourages free speech and that it “does not work with entities associated with communist, socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs.”
One question frames the U.N. agencies themselves as a problem, asking organizations whether their projects “reinforce U.S. sovereignty by limiting reliance on international organizations or global governance structures (e.g., UN, WHO)?”
A second part of the survey asks organizations to give a score from “no impact” to “major impact” on questions including, “What impact does this project have on preventing illegal immigration to the U.S.?” and “How much does this project directly impact efforts to counter malign influence, including China?”
The comparatively few staffers left at USAID were among the federal employees still striving to complete the questionnaires, despite the Trump administration’s announcement that it had already decided to gut the agency’s contracts, the USAID staffer said.
One former diplomat said the questions will seem “intrusive and uncomfortable” to anyone doing development work overseas.
“At the U.N., where you have 193 countries that represent every race, gender and language, diversity is a fact. It is not an ideology,” said Thomas Shannon, a former U.S. diplomat who worked under President Barack Obama and during Trump’s first administration.
“It would be my hope that the United States would understand that maybe with a few exceptions, the programs at the U.N. are not designed to promote ‘woke’ ideology but to address very real obstacles and challenges,” he said.
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Lee reported from La Malbaie, Canada, and Knickmeyer from Washington.
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