Witness Hagman urges ban on U.S. funding for U.N. agencies led by CCP‑affiliated officials

Miss Hagman, a witness at the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State and Related Programs’ Member Day, told members that the Chinese Communist Party is "waging a multilateral influence operation" inside U.N. specialized agencies and urged the committee to act in the fiscal year 2027 appropriations bill.

"The CCP is seeking to gain legitimacy inside the U.N. through its specialized agencies," Hagman testified, citing what she described as efforts to place Party‑affiliated nationals in leadership and staff positions at agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization. She also named specific officials, saying, for example, that "a CCP bureaucrat, Q Deng, who leads the Food and Agriculture Organization" had been linked in testimony to management problems.

Hagman recommended two concrete actions for the subcommittee to include in FY27: direct the State Department to "routinely and strategically prepare for U.N. elections" to field competitive U.S. candidates, and prohibit U.S. funding to U.N. specialized agencies that "are chaired or otherwise under the leadership of a CCP‑affiliated individual," language she urged the committee to adopt in the upcoming bill. She also noted that the subcommittee provided $5 million for placement of U.S. citizens in the Junior Professional Officer program and recommended not less than $750,000 "to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. citizens for leadership positions within the U.N. system."

Committee members responded that they share Hagman’s concerns and would stay engaged. The chairman referenced a recent field hearing at the U.N. and an investigative report from a select committee, and members urged continued work with the State Department to recruit and support qualified U.S. candidates for international posts.

The hearing record includes Hagman’s request for funding prohibitions and an explicit State Department directive; the subcommittee did not vote on those proposals during the session and no formal legislative text was adopted at the hearing. Hagman’s characterizations of agency mismanagement and specific officials were presented as testimony; committee members took note and discussed oversight and candidate recruitment as next steps.