The Trump administration should reconsider cuts to international funding if it wants to “stand over” the USA’s role in brokering the Good Friday Agreement, it has been warned.
Concerns are mounting over the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) after US President Donald Trump ordered a review of almost all foreign assistance programmes last week.
The Executive Order has led to a 90-day pause on foreign aid spending, and stated the “United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values”.
There are fears that the IFI will be hamstrung in delivering its mission to assist communities in both Northern Ireland and in the Republic’s border counties.
Created by the Irish and British governments in 1986 to promote reconciliation between nationalist and unionist communities across the island, the fund also works to promote social and economic growth.
Th IFI currently supports 64 projects in the north, and 27 in the Republic.
In 2024, the IFI received $4 million from the USA to assist with its programmes.
Among groups to benefit from the IFI last year was the Phoenix Education Centre, which works to provide opportunities for young people from loyalist communities in east Belfast, to dissuade them from dangers including drugs and paramilitarism.
The group received more than £210,000 from the IFI for its Step Up for Change project targeting young people who left school with no qualifications.
Executive director Emma Shaw told The Irish News: “Without this funding, we wouldn’t be able to this work at the capacity in which we are.
“In our particular case, due to the lack of available government funding for alternative education, the IFI funding has been vital in the work that goes on at a grassroots level.
“I hope that US funding for the IFI, in order to help projects like ours, can continue, as it is concerning to think about what steps into the vacuum created if these projects don’t keep going.
“It’s in the interest of the US to keep supporting the IFI, as so many of our young people go off to the US to study or work, which can be a boost to their economy. If the US wants to stand over its role as an arbitrator of the Good Friday Agreement, then it’s important that it continues to support funding for peace and reconciliation projects here.”
IFI chair Paddy Harte said in a statement on Monday that his organisation has “always had a very close relationship with the US Administration”.
“We have enjoyed bipartisan support on a financial, political and often very personal basis which has been critical in building and embedding the level of peace we now enjoy on this island,” he said.
“We will continue to work with our US colleagues to establish clarity with what this executive order means.”
