Is the US Moving Towards the UN’s Exit Door?
Credit: United Nations
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 13 2026 (IPS)
Judging by the mass US withdrawal from 66 UN entities, including UN conventions and international treaties*, is it remotely possible that the unpredictable Trump administration may one day decide to pull out of the UN, and force the Secretariat out of New York– despite the 1947 UN-US headquarters agreement?
Besides the 66, the withdrawals also include the pullouts from the Human Rights Council, the WHO, UNRWA and UNESCO– while imposing drastic reductions in funding for the remaining UN entities the US has not yet formally exited.
So, will the United Nations, which has come under heavy fire, be far behind?
That possibility is strengthened by the critical views of the UN both by President Trump and senior US officials.
Dr Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics, University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on issues relating to the United Nations, told IPS even the U.S. presidents most hostile to the United Nations– like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush– recognized the importance of the world body in terms of advancing U.S. interests, including understanding the importance of maintaining the UN system as whole, even while violating certain legal principles in particular cases.
Similarly, he pointed out, the United States was willing to participate in various UN bodies in an effort to wield influence, even while disagreeing with some of their policies or even their overall mandates.
“The Trump administration, however, appears to be rejecting the post-WWII international legal system as a whole. His statements, particularly since the attack on Venezuela, appear to be a throwback to the 19th century imperial prerogatives and a rejection of modern international law.”
“As a result, it is possible that Trump could indeed pull the United States out of the United Nations and force the UN out of New York”, declared Dr Zunes.
Addressing the General Assembly last September, Trump remarked, “What is the purpose of the United Nations? It’s not even coming close to living up to [its] potential.”
Dismissing the U.N. as an outdated, ineffective organization, he boasted, “I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries, and never a phone call from the United Nations offering to help in finalizing the deal.”
Martin S. Edwards, Associate Dean of Academic and Student Affairs, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, told IPS “this is dubious language about cutting inefficiency and fighting diversity wrapped up in red meat to feed President Trump’s base”.
It’s a ploy to use foreign affairs to distract voters for whom he has yet to deliver. The fact that the actual follow-up documents haven’t been received by the Secretary General tells you everything here. It fits a pattern of the President carving out maximalist positions and then getting very little in the end, he pointed out.
But it’s a bigger challenge, he said, on two fronts:
1. This is going to continue to REDUCE US influence at the UN rather than increase it. Stable foreign relations are based on credibility. The US continues to squander its reserves, and other countries will step into the vacuum.
2. This policy might have been a good social media post for voters, but makes little sense in practice. What the White House wants is a line-item veto over every single aspect of UN operations. But assessed contributions are not an ala carte menu, declared Edwards.
Mandeep S. Tiwana, Secretary General, CIVICUS, a global alliance of civil society organizations, told IPS retreat from international institutions by the Trump Administration is an attack on the legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who gave the people of the United States the New Deal and envisioned a bold framework for the establishment of the UN to overcome the horrors of the Second World War.
“Many of the impacted international institutions were built through the blood, sweat and tears of Americans. Pulling out of these institutions is an affront to their sacrifices and reverses decades of multilateral cooperation on peace, human rights, climate change and sustainable development,” he said.
Meanwhile, the attacks on the UN have continued unabated.
In an interview with Breitbart News U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Mike Waltz said “a quarter of everything the UN does, the United States pays for”.
“Is there money being well spent? I’d say right now, no, because it’s being spent on all of these other woke projects, rather than what it was originally intended to do, what President Trump wants it to do, and what I want it to do, which is focus on peace.”
Historically, the United States has been the largest financial contributor, typically covering around 22% of the UN’s regular budget and up to 28% of the peacekeeping budget.
Still, ironically, the US is also the biggest defaulter. According to the UN’s Administrative and Budgetar Committee, member states currently owe $1.87 billion of the $3.5 billion in mandatory contributions for the current budget cycle.
The former US House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of New York, a one-time nominee for the post of US Ambassador to the UN, was quoted as saying: “In the UN, Americans see a corrupt, defunct, and paralyzed institution more beholden to bureaucracy, process, and diplomatic niceties than the founding principles of peace, security, and international cooperation laid out in its charter”.
Meanwhile, in a veiled attack on the UN, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “What we term the “international system” is now overrun with hundreds of opaque international organizations, many with overlapping mandates, duplicative actions, ineffective outputs, and poor financial and ethical governance”.
Even those that once performed useful functions, he pointed out, have increasingly become inefficient bureaucracies, platforms for politicized activism or instruments contrary to our nation’s best interests, he said.
“Not only do these institutions not deliver results, they obstruct action by those who wish to address these problems. The era of writing blank checks to international bureaucracies is over,’ declared Rubio
IPS UN Bureau Report