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US owes UN big money ahead of annual meet: How much is it, what's the fallout?
President Donald Trump will join world leaders for the United Nations’ annual gathering as one of the world body’s loudest critics and the biggest debtor
As US President Donald Trump joins world leaders for the United Nations’ annual gathering in New York, he will come there with bills to pay — not just as the UN's loudest critic but its biggest defaulter too.
- Of the UN budget for 2025 at more than $3.5 billion, the US was due to pay 22%, approximately $800 million.
- The total outstanding is more than $3 billion, including arrears for past years and unpaid peacekeeping expenses around the world.
The delay and sometimes outright refusal to pay is in line with Trump's inward-looking, ‘America First’ and ‘Make America Great Again’ ideology, by which he means the US, which is the richest country in the world, has unfairly been paying a large part of global bodies' budget.
Since Trump returned for a non-consecutive second term in January, he has all but stopped the payments. There are outstanding arrears from 2024, too, according to the UN.
In 2023, during Joe Biden's presidency, the US paid $13 billion overall for the UN umbrella group.
But Trump’s decision to not pay is simply a drive back to the pattern in his first term, when he sought to withhold some funding. There was such a situation in the late 1990s, too, when Senator Jesse Helms blocked US contributions as a push for the UN to enact reforms he wanted.
Trump's move is not surprising also given a wider US pullback from UN institutions such as the Human Rights Council, World Health Organisation and UNESCO. He has refused to pay the bills with non-UN organisations such as the security grouping NATO too.
A change does not look imminent. Just last week, the US administration announced it wouldn’t pay some $393 million in contributions to peacekeeping activities and $445 million in separately budgeted aid, news agency Bloomberg reported.
What happens of US continues to default on UN payment?
If the Trump administration keeps refusing to pay up, the US could lose its vote at the UN General Assembly.
The UN charter stipulates such a punishment for countries whose arrears exceed the amount they were supposed to pay the previous two years. Those countries currently include Afghanistan, Bolivia, Sao Tome and Principe and Venezuela, according to the Bloomberg report.
Can UN afford to run without US money?
With or without help from Washington, the UN is in trouble.
In January, the UN chief announced that the organisation was undergoing a money crisis, and is working to cut 19% of jobs in the 2026 fiscal year as well as reduce their budget by about 15% to around $3.24 billion. The UN peacekeeping workforce is set to shrink by 13%.
There is also the plan to merge some UN institutions among “efficiency measures”.
Trump was set to deliver his speech on Tuesday morning and is scheduled to meet UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres among other world leaders. Guterres called it a “good opportunity to strengthen the cooperation".
The White House is still working on a 180-day review of the international organisations it will fund in the future.
At the UN meet, though, where the Palestinian statehood issue and the Gaza war — issues on which the US stands with Israel against the majority of countries — are set to come up, with Trump expected to stick to his aggressive line.
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
