The U.S. memo on withdrawing from UN organizations is more bark than bite
Sound and fury, signifying nothing
Last night, the Trump administration finally announced the long-awaited results of its 180-day review of U.S. membership in international organizations, conventions, and treaties. It announced that it will withdraw from 35 non-UN organizations and cease participation in or funding to 31 UN entities, having concluded that continued engagement with these organizations and entities was “contrary to the interests of the United States”. No methodology was provided, and no rationale was offered for the inclusion of any organization on the list beyond a general statement that the entities and organizations in question “undermine America’s independence and waste taxpayer dollars on ineffective or hostile agendas”.1
The results of the review are basically as I expected. Back in July, I wrote a piece on the Trump administration’s policy towards the UN in which I predicted that
the United States is likely to remain a member of the UN, but that the United States will push for the UN—and the broader UN system—to be significantly reduced in the breadth of issues addressed. As a result of the review, the administration is likely to push for the symbolic withdrawal from some organizations with limited obvious linkages to U.S. national security interests, narrowly defined. For those organizations that it remains a member of, the administration is likely to use criticism and obstruction—including selective payment of assessed contributions—to maximize its ability to coerce those organizations into alignment with U.S. policy positions.
The eye-catching number of entities and organizations making the headlines obscures the fact that the only UN system organization that the U.S. will actually be withdrawing from is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).2 The other UN entities listed in the memorandum are part of the UN and are not international organizations in their own right.3 The Trump administration has not signaled that it is considering withdrawing from the UN itself; it simply announced that the United States will no longer participate in or fund the specific parts of the UN listed in the memorandum.
But the decision to cease funding to the UN entities in question has little practical effect given that these entities have not received U.S. funding since Trump (re)took office almost a year ago. The U.S. did not make any payments towards its outstanding assessed contributions to the regular budget in 2025,4 it eliminated the account used to fund core voluntary contributions to UN system organizations, and it did not include funding for any of these activities in its fiscal year 2026 budget.5
There are few surprises in the list of UN entities. Most of these cover issues that the administration has shown disdain for, such as development, gender, and the environment. The administration has also targeted entities focused on trade, as well as democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. And some on the list are not entities at all, but are inter-agency coordination mechanisms. To me, the biggest head-scratcher is the inclusion of the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination, which is a forum for improving coherence across the UN system.
Several entities on the list are intergovernmental bodies. The U.S. isn’t even currently a member of some of these to begin with. But for some, such as the Peacebuilding Commission (which the U.S. is a member of by virtue of its status as a permanent member of the Security Council), the cessation of U.S. participation will have more of an impact, but a limited one given that the United States has not played a particularly constructive role in these bodies under the Trump administration.
As for the rest of the UN system outside the UN itself (other than the UNFCCC), the Trump administration has evidently concluded that continued membership in other specialized agencies and related organizations is useful to counter a rising China.6 That said, the memorandum leaves the door open for potential further withdrawals in the future.
At the end of the day, it doesn't seem as if this decision changes much for the UN. Given all of the turmoil in just the first week of the new year and with the dust still settling from the marathon Fifth Committee deliberations, we should take solace in the fact that the 180-day review ended up being a damp squib.
What’s next?
© 2026 Eugene Chen under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations University.
Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Withdraws the United States from International Organizations that Are Contrary to the Interests of the United States. (2026, January 7). White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-withdraws-the-united-states-from-international-organizations-that-are-contrary-to-the-interests-of-the-united-states/
The International Trade Centre technically has the status of related organization, but I’m treating it as part of the UN for the purposes of this analysis because it is a joint agency of the UN (through the UN Conference for Trade and Development) and the World Trade Organization that receives funding from the UN regular budget and is administered using UN regulations and rules.
The UN is an international organization consisting of six main organs—the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat—and their subsidiary bodies, including the funds and programmes. The specialized agencies and related organizations are international organizations in their own right; they are separate from the UN but are part of the broader UN system.
United Nations. (2025, December 22). Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. UN Meetings Coverage and Press Releases. https://press.un.org/en/2025/db251222.doc.htm
Blanchfield, L. (2025). United Nations Issues: U.S. Funding to the UN System (No. IF10354). Congressional Research Service. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF10354/IF10354.44.pdf
Lee, M., & Amiri, F. (2026, January 7). US will exit 66 international organizations as it further retreats from global cooperation. The Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/united-nations-trump-international-organizations-withdrawal-d704fb9b444dc9cf569865d391b544a6