Trump administration could lead to budget cuts, leadership shakeup at UN

A Donald Trump presidency is sure to have reverberations at the United Nations (U.N.), and first on the chopping block could be its funding. 

The U.N. currently relies on the U.S. for about a third of its budget. President Biden increased U.S. financial contributions to the U.N., boosting it from $11.6 billion in 2020 to $18.1 billion in 2022. This gives a new administration wiggle room to withhold funds to the U.N. if its global interests do not align with the U.S.’, a notion some Republicans have already pushed for. 

The U.S. gave about three times as much that year as the next-highest contributors, Germany at $6.8 billion and Japan at $2.7 billion. 

“They will have to recalibrate now very much again in the Trump administration that will, I believe, be much more attentive, engaged and monitoring of the U.N.,” predicted Hugh Dugan, a longtime member of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. 

“There are teams there that have been sleepwalking the last few years without U.S. pressure on accountability, efficiency and effectiveness.”

Trump will be in office when the international body elects its next secretary general in 2026, and the U.S. will have veto power over any candidate. 

“Over the next year and a half, it’s going to make an effort to look more managerially competent to avoid some of the stern green eyes seated across here – attention that Elon Musk and the Trump team will want to bring to the consideration of the secretary general selection.”

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Trump would also likely once again withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords and the U.N. Global Compact on Migration. 

The U.N. particularly relies on the U.S. for global aid programs. In 2022, it provided half of all contributions to the World Food Programme, and about a third of all contributions to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the International Organization for Migration.

“There’s no doubt the U.N. is frightened and horrified,” of Trump taking office, said Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch. 

“We’re going to see budget cuts,” he said. “The most memorable being UNRWA.” 

Trump cut funding to the organization that distributes aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Biden led the U.S. in reinstating that aid and earmarking $1 billion for UNRWA – before freezing that aid when it was revealed that some employees had links to Hamas. 

“I would say the Human Rights Office, which is based in Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Council, America gives voluntary funds to that bureaucracy. I could see that being cut,” Neuer said. 

Some wonder whether Trump and a Republican-led Congress might try to withdraw the U.S. from the U.N. entirely. The GOP-controlled House passed a spending bill in June that would eliminate funding for the U.N.’s regular budget.

However, despite an adversarial tone toward global institutions, Trump is not expected to stop dealing with the U.N. altogether. In his first administration, he enjoyed a good relationship with Secretary General António Guterres, inviting him to the White House, and seemed to enjoy his yearly address to the General Assembly and the pageantry of world leaders traipsing through the New York City headquarters. 

“He engaged personally up there quite a lot. And during the opening of the General Assembly, he brought the White House up there, frankly, and lived up there for that week every year and operated. He recognizes the value of the organization, if just as a meeting place,” said Dugan.

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Trump could also seek to push candidates for leadership over agencies like UNICEF and the World Food Programme that challenge U.N. orthodoxy and encourage American employment across the agency to counter China’s growing influence. 

China doubled the number of its nationals employed at the U.N. to nearly 15,000 from 2009 to 2021. 

“This was very much in the mind of the Trump administration when I worked in the White House that China’s growing its influence in subtle and not so subtle ways throughout the organization, affording it a globalized platform of legitimacy that they’re ready and willing to exploit to their national ends,” said Dugan. 

“The U.S. has to study the terrain of the organization better and identify, in particular, the key posts and influential offices that we should show up with our best talent and make sure that we are effective. The Chinese have been doing that really well.”

Additionally, though the Biden administration did buck a number of U.N. resolutions that targeted Israel, he was naturally more supportive of international organizations as a whole. 

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