Kyle Feinstein, Stanford University
The world’s eyes are on the United Nations as President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). President Trump’s act will halt American funding for the UNHRC and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a support organization for Palestinian refugees. This withdrawal is a response to perceived anti-Israel bias and concern over the inclusion of member states with questionable human rights records.
President Trump’s executive orders remind the world that the US has the power to compel major reform in the UN through its economic contributions. The US is the largest contributor to the UN budget, assessed at 22% of the general budget and 28% of the organization’s peacekeeping contributions. For an organization that already grapples with insufficient funds and financial mismanagement, the possibility of losing commitment from its greatest contributor presents a serious threat to the UN’s future standing. To understand what US actions mean for the future of the UN, we must understand the driving force behind its operations—finances.
The UN is funded through two primary types of contributions: assessed contributions and voluntary contributions. As stipulated by the UN Charter, assessed contributions are monetary payments made by the 193 UN member states. The UN General Assembly determines the amount required from each member based on a formula designed to represent a country’s “capacity to pay.” The formula is primarily based on a country’s gross national income but also includes additional adjustments, such as whether a state elects to contribute troops to UN peacekeeping missions. Assessed contributions fund the core UN budget including the regular budget (e.g. General Assembly, Security Council, and Secretariat), peacekeeping operations, and specialized agencies (e.g. World Health Organization and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
While assessed contributions provide a relatively stable financial foundation for the UN, much of the UN’s work depends on voluntary contributions at the discretion of its members. Voluntary contributions are optional payments made by governments, private entities, and international organizations. Voluntary contributions fund the UN’s special humanitarian and development agencies and initiatives, including the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Food Programme (WFP). This source of revenue is less predictable, making long-term planning difficult for UN programs that rely on it. However, the discretionary nature of voluntary contributions also allows for flexibility in adapting to global challenges. Since most donations are earmarked for particular projects, voluntary contributions provide a forum for donor countries to exert influence over UN priorities.
Figure 1: Funding sources for the UN system, 2019 (Source: United Nations)
In total, most of the UN system is funded directly by governments (72.4% in 2022) and multilateral partners that are typically supported by governments (17.0%). Figure 1 illustrates the decomposition of revenue to all bodies in the UN system, emphasizing the significance of state contributions. The UN’s regular budget for 2025 will be USD 3.72 billion, roughly USD 130 million greater than the 2024 budget. UN programs that are largely supported by voluntary funding have significantly larger budgets, including UN peacekeeping (currently USD 5.9 billion) and UNICEF (appealing for USD 9.9 billion).
| Entity | US Contributions |
| WFP | 3,108,796,565 |
| UNHCR | 1,917,853,989 |
| UN-DPO | 1,750,452,563 |
| IOM | 1,403,889,778 |
| Others | 1,316,738,583 |
| UNICEF | 975,931,533 |
| UN | 953,331,590 |
| WHO | 486,905,452 |
| UNRWA | 422,004,945 |
| FAO | 391,135,862 |
| UNDP | 240,691,498 |
| Total | 12,967,732,358 |
Figure 2: Composition of Total Revenue from Top 10 Contributing Countries (Source: United Nations)
The economic capacity of many of these budgets would not be remotely achievable without firm US support. The US government contributed nearly USD 13 billion to UN fiscal year 2023 (approximately 24% assessed, 75% voluntary, and 1% services and investments). Figure 2 visualizes how US FY2023 contributions were distributed throughout the UN system, supplying a large proportion of the budget of many UN entities. Notice that the US revenue is over double the amount of the second highest contributor, Germany (roughly USD 5.4 billion).
With UN operations highly dependent on US contributions, history has shown that this support cannot be taken for granted. Trump is not the first US official to decrease payments to the UN. For example, in 1983 the Reagan administration pulled out of UNESCO, criticising its politicization and anti-Western bias. Additionally, since 1994 Congress has capped the US contributions to the UN regular budget at 25%. This restriction has presented a significant gap in UN assessments and US contributions. In 2023, the UN assessed the US share of peacekeeping at 26.95% but realized payments were capped at 25%. Due to this gap, the US has accumulated over USD 1 billion in arrears since FY2017. Moreover, the US has adopted legislative safeguards to prevent UN mismanagement and abuses. Following reports of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN peacekeepers, the State Department-Foreign Operations (SFOPS) Appropriations Acts since FY2008 have prohibited the obligation of UN peacekeeping funding unless the Secretary of State certifies that the UN is executing effective methods to prevent UN employees and peacekeeping troops from human trafficking, exploitation, and other human rights abuses.
Given this history, how might the UN react to a second term under President Trump? In many ways, Trump’s executive orders are largely symbolic reminders to the world of the nature of multilateral negotiation. Countries vote with their dollars. With the UN’s high reliance on voluntary contributions and the precedent of rebus sic stantibus (legal principle of exiting from a treaty without withdrawal provisions) and Congressional budget caps, the UN financial structure is susceptible to this form of negotiation.
If executed appropriately, US pressure to the UN could be a healthy impetus for reform rather than an existential threat to the UN’s existence. Despite open criticism of the UN, the Trump administration has demonstrated clear willingness to engage with the UN and support its operations that are perceived as beneficial. In every year of Trump’s first term, the US supplied more money to the UN than any year under President Obama. President Trump’s rhetoric on the issue has remained relatively consistent. In response to the UN Security Council (UNSC) facing escalating confrontations over North Korea’s missile program in 2017, President Trump remarked, “The United Nations is an underperformer, but it has huge potential…I think that the United Nations has tremendous potential.” Recently in February 2025, President Trump echoed these sentiments, telling reporters “[The UN has] got great potential and based on the potential we’ll continue to go along with it, but they got to get their act together…It’s not being well run, to be honest and they’re not doing the job.”
In the context of the history of US-UN’s relations and the current geopolitical situation, it seems unlikely that the Trump administration will completely withdraw from the UN. Instead, the Trump administration’s actions indicate a resolute strategy to compel reform in the UN. The Trump administration struck this calculated balance in his first term through financial signaling. For example, to exert influence on UN peacekeeping while remaining cooperative, the US under President Trump’s first administration pushed for budgetary restraints on peacekeeping operations, but refrained from executing its P5 veto to terminate the operations.
International organizations like the UN are strongest when they recognize and act upon the overlapping consensus of states. The UN can be a powerful forum for peaceful discourse and collaboration that works to benefit the world at large. To achieve this, the UN leverages democratic processes. However, for better or worse, the operational structure of the UN is not strictly democratic and it never has been. Take the UNSC for example. The UNSC is composed of 15 members, the Permanent Five (P5) and the Elected Ten (E10). A peacekeeping resolution must receive 9 votes in favor and no veto by a P5 member to be approved. Thus, the UNSC upholds democratic values in its voting structure but also reflects unequal geopolitical power dynamics through the veto. This structure has remained in place and experienced little effective opposition in part because the financial incentives are largely aligned. The P5 members—the US, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia—also happen to be some of the largest financial contributors to the UN. Thus, the global influence of the P5 established in the aftermath of World War II has been maintained partially through the role of financial incentive structures that elevate their negotiating power. Therefore, the UNSC structure is evidence that the UN and other global organizations are swayed by economic realities, despite their democratic appearances.
In brief, it is unlikely that the Blue Helmets will hang up their gear anytime soon. Although the UN is currently highly flawed and mismanaged, many states including the US recognize the UN as an important diplomatic tool and one of the largest global stages for multilateralism. However, this does not mean that the UN is not approaching a critical moment in its existence. The US, under a second Trump administration, is returning to a US philosophy of multilateralism that demands that US dollars be used in support of US global values. The question of US-UN relations is in many ways fundamentally an economic question. To secure its future, the UN must adapt by instituting accountability structures and targeted reforms that align the values of its members through the proxy of economic incentives.