The United States is taking an à la carte approach to the United Nations, participating in and supporting select UN programs and bodies but withdrawing from and undercutting many others. The administration is engaging with those parts of the organization, such as the Security Council and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), that, in its view, facilitate and enhance the achievement of U.S. policy goals. Even such engagement, however, is contingent and instrumental. It takes advantage of the United Nations’ capacity and legitimacy—by pushing for the endorsement of U.S.-backed non-UN mechanisms, for example—while at the same time working to constrain the organization’s independence and discretion. In contrast, relations with UN agencies that do not align with the administration’s policies are being severed, including withdrawals from more than thirty in early 2026, on top of prior departures from the World Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the Human Rights Council.Footnote ¹ The “UN needs to do less, and do it better,” U.S. Representative to the United Nations Michael Waltz told a Senate committee, adding that the UN should focus on “what it does best: peace, security, and lifesaving assistance.”Footnote ² Even though the United States’ selective and conditional engagement presents a serious challenge to the organization, including its financial stability, the UN secretariat and many member states see no option but to work with the United States, fearing that the alternative—full U.S. disengagement and withdrawal—would be far worse for the institution.

One area of continued engagement is, as Ambassador Waltz stated, lifesaving assistance. But the amount and nature of the United States’ commitment to the UN’s work differ from past practice. The administration has reduced and restructured U.S. financing of the UN’s humanitarian work and increased the conditions for the use of those funds. The United States provided more than $4 billion to UN humanitarian programs in 2025, nearly 15 percent of all contributions that year but less than half the amounts it gave in previous years.Footnote ³ In a December 2025 memorandum of understanding (MOU) with OCHA, the United States pledged “an initial $2 billion anchor commitment” for 2026 that would go to seventeen countries, as well as the UN Central Emergency Response Fund.Footnote ⁴ Five months later, the State Department announced an additional $1.8 billion in funding, with four more states put on the list.Footnote ⁵

According to the U.S. Mission in Geneva, the MOU “establishes a new paradigm” for U.S. support of UN humanitarian programs.Footnote ⁶ Instead of distributing U.S. assistance through “the current unaccountable morass of projectized grants” that “suffer[] from ideological creep, maddening duplication and bureaucratic inefficiencies, and poor coordination,” U.S. funds will now go into “a set of consolidated and flexible pooled fund vehicles at the country or crisis level.”Footnote ⁷ These vehicles will be administered by OCHA in accordance with “country-level policy agreements” that will cover the delivery of UN assistance “and ensure alignment with American interest and priorities.”Footnote ⁸ Together, the change in funding arrangements will consolidate U.S. humanitarian contributions, ensure continued U.S. control over the distribution of U.S.-funded assistance, and institute procedures that bolster the U.S. goals of greater efficiency and responsibility in UN programs.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the “agreement … radically reforms the way the U.S. programs, funds, and oversees UN-administered humanitarian work” and “require[s] the UN to cut bloat, remove duplication, and commit to powerful new impact, accountability and oversight mechanisms.”Footnote ⁹ The U.S. Mission put it even more bluntly: the “agreement requires the UN to consolidate humanitarian functions …. Individual UN agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.”Footnote ¹⁰ UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said that “the agreement is a major vote of confidence in the ‘Humanitarian Reset’” that he announced in March 2025.Footnote ¹¹ Announcing the second tranche of funding, the State Department described the MOU’s implementation as a “tremendous success” that led to the “deliver[y] [of] life-saving assistance to 21.1 million people more quickly, more efficiently, and with greater focus on those facing the most acute humanitarian needs.”Footnote ¹² The United States’ $3.8 billion commitment constitutes 16.5 percent of the $23 billion goal for UN emergency relief in 2026. That target is half of 2025’s unmet objective.Footnote ¹³

In addition to the controls and restrictions imposed by the MOU, the UN’s use of U.S. funds will be subject to the administration’s newly adopted Promoting Human Flourishing in Foreign Assistance (PHFFA) Policy.Footnote ¹⁴ The PHFFA Policy is built on, but is much broader than, the Mexico City Policy (MCP), which, under Republican presidents since 1984, has banned foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from “perform[ing] or actively promot[ing] abortion as a method of family planning” as a condition of receiving U.S. aid.Footnote ¹⁵ The new policy prohibits the use of foreign assistance to promote: (1) “abortion as a method of family planning overseas,”Footnote ¹⁶ (2) “discriminatory equity ideology,”Footnote ¹⁷ and (3) “gender ideology.”Footnote ¹⁸ Compared to its predecessors, the PHFFA Policy expands the scope of foreign assistance controls in four important ways.Footnote ¹⁹ It adds equity- and gender-related restrictions to those on abortion, which was the exclusive subject of the MCP. It broadens the restrictions’ applicability beyond foreign NGOs to international organizations and U.S. NGOs.Footnote ²⁰ It applies the restrictions to subrecipients, not just the direct recipients of funds, significantly extending the reach of the policy.Footnote ²¹ Finally, it widens the policy’s coverage to recipients of all non-military foreign assistance, not just global health assistance, as under the most recent iteration of the MCP.Footnote ²² Critically, unlike typical earmarking, in which the donor imposes restrictions on the use of their contributions, the rules prohibit any UN entity that receives U.S. foreign assistance from using funds from any source, not just those from the United States, in ways that violate the PHFFA Policy.Footnote ²³ This could effectively impose the Trump administration’s views on abortion, diversity, and gender across wide swaths of the organization. Under-Secretary-General Fletcher has said that he “cannot take … money under those conditions.”Footnote ²⁴

The practical implications of the PHFFA Policy on the UN’s work would be extensive, with potentially severe consequences for those most in need. Ambiguities in the rules, uncertainty in how they will be applied, their applicability to subrecipients, burdensome compliance requirements, and the harsh consequences of non-compliance would force the UN to be cautious and risk averse as it distributes aid. It is likely that the administration will use the PHFFA Policy to pressure UN agencies to change their procedures, priorities, and recipients. UN work that focuses on women, diversity, and LGBTQI+ persons, in areas ranging from conflict relief to internal hiring, will be particularly affected. During President Trump’s first year back in office, the United States sought to remove references to DEI and gender equality, as well as climate change, from UN documents and decisions across the organization.Footnote ²⁵ These attempts—made through decision-making procedures in which the United States had a single vote—largely failed. But what the United States could not achieve through collective processes, it may yet accomplish through unilateral financial coercion.

A second area of continued U.S. engagement with the UN is in peace and security. In the Security Council, the administration’s instrumental approach has taken the form of picking and choosing the UN missions it will support and securing the Council’s endorsement of U.S.-endorsed non-UN operations. The administration has broadly criticized UN peacekeeping as wasteful, and it has pressured the Council to “downsize[e] or clos[e] missions that have outlived their purpose.”Footnote ²⁶ It zeroed out peacekeeping in both of its budget requests to Congress,Footnote ²⁷ sought rescission of previously budgeted amounts, secured the shuttering (at the end of 2026) of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon,Footnote ²⁸ and withheld payment of its assessed UN peacekeeping dues, resulting in arrears of about $1.8 billion as of this writing.Footnote ²⁹ The administration is, however, willing to spend on the particular UN peacekeeping operations it supports, agreeing to pay $400 million to cover the expenses of missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Lebanon.Footnote ³⁰

At the same time that the United States has sought to “streamline” and wind down UN operations,Footnote ³¹ it has convinced the Council to endorse U.S.-backed non-UN initiatives. In September 2025, the Security Council approved the creation of the 5,500-person Gang Suppression Force (GSF) in Haiti to replace a smaller mission tasked with supporting the Haitian National Police. Convinced by the United States that stronger measures were needed to restore stability in Haiti, the Council conferred on the GSF a mandate to “[c]onduct … operations to neutralize, isolate, and deter gangs” and authorized the GSF to “take all necessary measures.”Footnote ³² Two months later, also at the request of the United States, the Council endorsed the establishment of the Board of Peace, a new U.S.-controlled entity created by the Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict.Footnote ³³ The Board will oversee the governance and redevelopment of Gaza on an interim basis, a role recognized by the Council.Footnote ³⁴ The United States has committed to fund both the Board and the GSF.

Administration officials have followed through on the president’s order to review all IOs to “determine … [those that] are contrary to the interest of the United States and whether … [such organizations] can be reformed,” withdrawing from, altogether, more than seventy organizations or bodies within organizations during the administration’s first year.Footnote ³⁵ Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the organizations as “anti-American, useless, or wasteful.”Footnote ³⁶ “These withdrawals,” he said, “keep a key promise President Trump made to Americans—we will stop subsidizing globalist bureaucrats who act against our interests.”Footnote ³⁷

At the United Nations, the United States is cherry-picking its participation and financial support. As it is violating the Charter through strikes against Venezuela, attacks on Iran, threats to Greenland, Cuba, and others, and withholding its regular and peacekeeping dues to exert further reforms,Footnote ³⁸ the United States is using the UN to achieve its policy goals both inside and outside the organization, including creating parallel institutions where the United States can operate without the constraints of law and multilateralism. The extent of U.S. power even as it decreases its commitment to the international system is reflected in the willingness of UN officials and member states to accede to U.S. demands and their tepid responses to U.S. breaches of international law.