UN lays out survival plan as Trump threatens to slash funding

Business Times

13 hours ago

[NEW YORK] Secretary General Antonio Guterres is slashing more than US$700 million in spending and laying plans to overhaul the United Nations as its largest sponsor, the US, pulls back support.
Guterres's plan calls for 20 per cent cuts in expenditures and employment, which would bring its budget, now US$3.7 billion, to the lowest since 2018. About 3,000 jobs would be cut.
Officially, the reform programme is pegged to the UN's 80th anniversary, not the new US administration. But the scale of the reductions reflects the threat to US support, which traditionally accounts for 22 per cent of the organisation's budget.
US President Donald Trump has suspended that funding and pulled out of several UN bodies already, with a broader review expected to lead to further cuts.
'We are not going to be part of organisations that pursue policies that hamper the United States,' Deputy State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott told reporters on Thursday (Jul 31).
The planned cuts at the UN come as the Trump administration has eliminated tens of billions of US dollars in foreign aid as part of its drive to focus on what it sees as US interests. Conflicts from the Middle East to Ukraine and Africa have added to the need for global assistance.
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After years of financial struggles, the UN under Guterres already was planning to make sweeping structural changes. He warned in January that it was facing 'a full-blown liquidity crisis'. Overall, spending across the UN system is expected to fall to the lowest level in about a decade, down as much as US$20 billion from its high in 2023.
'UN 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 (NYU) 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 programmes.
Guterres controls the UN's regular budget, which is only a fraction of the total expenditures of its affiliates. Facing funding shortages of their own, agencies such as Unicef and Unesco are also planning major cutbacks.
The Trump administration has already stopped funds from going into the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council and left Unesco.
Guterres' plan has also drawn criticism, both from Trump allies and inside the UN.
'There are some things that the UN 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 UN shouldn't be decreasing but eliminating altogether.'
He cited the UN's nuclear watchdog and the World Food Program as contributing significantly to US interests and singled out the Food and Agriculture Organization and Human Rights Council as having mandates at odds with American policy.
Meanwhile, UN staff in Geneva announced last week that 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 UN more top-heavy and bloated,' Ian Richards, president of the UN Staff Union in Geneva, posted on LinkedIn about the UN 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 US support will bring could help the UN adapt, he added.
'Maybe that's a silver lining,' Chen said. 'We will all be primed for reform.' BLOOMBERG