U.N. lays out survival plan as Trump threatens to slash funding

Japan Times

8 hours ago

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is slashing more than $700 million in spending and laying plans to overhaul the United Nations as its largest sponsor, the U.S., pulls back support.
Guterres' plan calls for 20% cuts in expenditures and employment, which would bring its budget, now $3.7 billion, to the lowest since 2018. About 3,000 jobs would be cut.
Officially, the reform program is pegged to the U.N.'s 80th anniversary, not the new U.S. administration. But the scale of the reductions reflects the threat to U.S. support, which traditionally accounts for 22% of the organization's budget.
U.S. President Donald Trump has suspended that funding and pulled out of several U.N. bodies already, with a broader review expected to lead to further cuts.
"We're not going to be part of organizations that pursue policies that hamper the United States,' Deputy State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told reporters Thursday.
The planned cuts at the U.N. come as the Trump administration has eliminated tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid as part of its drive to focus on what it sees as U.S. interests. Conflicts from the Mideast to Ukraine and Africa have added to the need for global assistance.
After years of financial struggles, the U.N. under Guterres already was planning to make sweeping structural changes. He warned in January it was facing "a full-blown liquidity crisis.' Overall, spending across the U.N. system is expected to fall to the lowest level in about a decade — down as much as $20 billion from its high in 2023.
"U.N. 80 is in large part a reaction from the secretary-general to the kind of challenges posed by the second Trump administration,' said Eugene Chen, senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation.
Guterres is expected to release details of his overhaul plans in a budget in September. The plan calls for restructuring many of its programs.
Guterres controls the U.N.'s regular budget, which is only a fraction of the total expenditures of its affiliates. Facing funding shortages of their own, agencies like UNICEF and UNESCO are also planning major cutbacks.
The Trump administration already has stopped funds from going into the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, withdrawn from the U.N. Human Rights Council and left UNESCO.
Guterres' plan has also drawn criticism, both from Trump allies and inside the U.N.
"There are some things that the U.N. does that arguably should be increased in terms of resources,' said Brett Schaefer, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "And then there are some things that the U.N. shouldn't be decreasing but eliminating altogether.'
He cited the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog and the World Food Program as contributing significantly to U.S. interests and singled out the Food and Agriculture Organization and Human Rights Council as having mandates at odds with American policy.
Meanwhile, U.N. staff in Geneva announced last week they passed a motion of no confidence in Guterres and the plan.
"Staff felt its slash and burn approach lacked focus, had no strategic purpose, and was making the U.N. more top-heavy and bloated,' Ian Richards, president of the U.N. Staff Union in Geneva, posted on LinkedIn about the U.N. 80 report.
That vote has largely symbolic importance, according to NYU's Chen.
Still, Guterres' efforts to get ahead of the inevitable cuts that reductions in U.S. support will bring could help the U.N. adapt, he added.
"Maybe that's a silver lining,' Chen said. "We'll all be primed for reform.'