NEW YORK — The Trump administration unveiled a "trade over aid" initiative at the United Nations in New York last week, outlining a shift away from donor-focused development assistance toward greater private investment. The administration is pressuring the United Nations and the international aid sector to adopt trade-focused policies to benefit US firms under threat of further budget cuts.

Representatives of US corporations including Walmart, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Palantir attended the launch event. US Ambassador Mike Waltz said the initiative did not mean the United States was walking away from international aid but instead meant shifting the old ways of doing business.

"What you'll typically hear is that the United States is walking away from aid, or are all the United States is walking away from the UN, it's turning its back on the world. And I can tell you that couldn't be further from the truth," Waltz said at the launch event. He added: "Free-market principles remain the best proven path to lasting prosperity, with better and more permanent results than any of the alternatives."

The rollout followed earlier moves by the administration to scale back multilateral commitments. In February at a security conference in Munich, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the United Nations for having "virtually no role" in resolving conflicts and called for reforms. In March, Rubio directed US diplomats to deliver a call to action to high-level foreign officials to sign on with their support for "trade over aid."

Two US diplomatic notes circulated in Geneva and New York indicated that the US was willing to use the threat of more budget cuts to advance its agenda. One note said the US would only pay "a significant portion" of its UN dues if the United Nations implemented reforms including overhauling its pension scheme and cutting travel costs. The note also said the US would only make an additional payment to UN peacekeeping budgets in return for a 10 percent reduction in peacekeeping missions.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said last week that the funds the US owes were "non-negotiable." Earlier this year, he warned that the United Nations faced "imminent financial collapse" due to unpaid fees most owed by the US.

The Trump administration fired nearly all of USAID's 16,000 employees when it dismantled the agency last year. An estimated 280,000 contractors, partners, and local hires worldwide lost their jobs following the dismantling. The administration has also largely suspended support for the World Health Organization, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Oxfam America estimated at least 23 million children could lose access to education due to the closure of USAID. The organization also estimated that as many as 95 million people could lose access to basic healthcare and that more than 3 million preventable deaths per year were possible as a result.