Opting Out: United States to Stop Engaging with More UN Entities

Commentary by Allison Lombardo

Published January 15, 2026

On January 7, the Trump administration issued a presidential memorandum directing U.S. agencies to "withdraw" from 35 intergovernmental groups or coalitions and 31 UN entities that, in their view, operate contrary to U.S. national interests.

Despite the fanfare with which it was announced, this is not the headline-grabbing exit of major UN entities ominously foreshadowed. Rather, this move focuses on smaller agencies and niche coalitions.

Unsurprisingly, the United States is walking away from entities that promote gender norms, climate solutions, and sustainable development. It also ends participation in some peacebuilding, international law, and scientific coalitions. Some of these institutions were already feeling the squeeze of cuts to U.S. foreign assistance, but many groups will carry on relatively intact-just without one of the world's most influential governments on board.

A good review of U.S. engagement, strenuous oversight of taxpayer dollars, and advocacy for UN reform are welcome. In some ways, this is the new administration getting organized about how they want to spend their time. Showing up just to show up is not advancing U.S. policy. As the Trump administration has suggested, it is true that UN deliberations "often criticize U.S. policies, advance agendas contrary to our values, or waste taxpayer dollars by purporting to address important issues but not achieving any real results."

Yet, this limited culling belies the sustained logic of the administration that global cooperation is suspect and "[undermines] America's independence and [wastes] taxpayer dollars on ineffective or hostile agendas." We may see more action ahead, however. Together, this policy approach and the slashing of U.S. multilateral contributions ultimately pose a sustained risk to the UN-but also to the United States.

Early Withdrawals: The UNHRC, UNRWA, and UNESCO

Early last year, Executive Order 14199 launched a review of international organizations, groups, and treaties to determine whether they align with "America First" policies. It halted U.S. engagement with the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that delivers services and aid in Gaza and the West Bank-anticipated actions the first Trump administration had taken as well. In July, the administration stated its plans to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a months-long process that will conclude in December 2026, a step also taken in the first Trump administration. Upon his inauguration, President Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization, a process that takes at least a year.

Continued Participation in Major UN Peace, Security, Humanitarian, and Technical Agencies

The major peace and security organs (UN Security Council, or the UNSC) and humanitarian agencies (e.g., United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, World Food Programme, and UNICEF), the costly items that have historically taken up the majority of U.S. time and engagement, continue with active U.S. participation. The United States also retains its seat in the UN General Assembly, though it is facing an imminent deadline to pay its dues before Article 19 of the UN Charter-which suspends membership for countries in arrears-goes into effect.

Also remaining are the major scientific and technical standards bodies for trade, travel, and security, like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Maritime Organization (IMO), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), for which the administration had previously signaled support and funding.

Defining Withdrawal

The core logic of the UN system is that bringing countries together to solve problems, even if slow, challenging, and potentially inefficient, is better than the alternative-violent disputes, conflict, and chaos. Indeed, across U.S. administrations of both parties, most efforts have been focused on reform and oversight, not disengagement.

America First policies dismiss that premise, aiming instead to halt U.S. taxpayer funding and participation in organizations seen as prioritizing globalist agendas over U.S. interests or addressing key issues so inefficiently that U.S. resources would be better spent elsewhere. In Trump 1.0, the administration exited some institutions but pressed change in others, whereas Trump 2.0 shows little such patience for the tedious work of reform.

The U.S. government noted that "withdrawal means ceasing participation in or funding to those entities to the extent permitted by law." With its directives to diplomats over the last year, the Trump administration has already stopped participating in many of these entities.

The administration has signaled in its FY 2026 budget that it does not intend to provide its regular budget funding or most voluntary contributions to the United Nations. And with its financial rescissions, funding stopped in many cases last year. While the United States can legally withdraw from treaty-based organizations based on the processes outlined in their rules of procedure, programs like the UN Democracy Fund are project-based, so if the United States stops contributing, they have in effect exited already.

Most tangibly, this means the United States will stop showing up to meetings with these organizations. Some withdrawals do not seem to have any significant logic, given the minimal budgetary contributions and requirements of time. Why not attend a briefing by the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children? And why single out the UN Alliance of Civilizations, the UN office that drafts and directs the United Nations' antisemitism strategy? Similarly, UN-Water and UN-Oceans are not organizations but coordinating mechanisms, so withdrawing simply means you will not attend the next meeting.

What advantages does this give the United States? Worse, does the United States lose tactical leverage where it might well need it?

Expected Retreat: Gender and Climate

The withdrawals are most focused on issue areas where dramatic action has been taken in the domestic sphere. The administration has rejected what it terms "gender ideology."Any notion of gender-gender equality or rights of women and girls has thus been viewed with suspicion, adding to a more traditional Republican notion of rejecting support for reproductive rights. So, while it was expected (as in Trump 1.0) to end funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the Trump administration has now ended all support to UN Women. In 2024, the United States sat on the UN Women Executive Board and provided $10 million in voluntary contributions and about $15 million in project funding.

UN Women does normative policy work and runs programs to advance gender equality, but has struggled to find its footing. With only about 15 percent of gender-related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on track, previous administrations have shared frustrations with the efficacy and pace of UN Women's work. Traditionally, the United States has conducted oversight and pressed the agency to be more impactful, but has not been a top donor; much of the work will carry on unimpacted. Yet, the long-term impacts of U.S. disengagement on global gender equality are yet to be seen.

There is a clear targeting of environmental, climate, and scientific institutions. While the withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) disrupts more than 30 years of agreed global environmental cooperation, this simply formalizes what has already become a reality-this year, the United States did not participate in the 2025 COP 30.

At the same time, even with the clear targeting of environmental and social issues, the major UN entities on these issues, like the UN Environment Program, the UN Development Program, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, will still have U.S. diplomats engaged. So even as broader engagement and U.S. voluntary contributions have ceased, some of the central agencies working on environmental and women's rights will retain a U.S. presence, and any real impacts of U.S. absence will be over-the-horizon.

Ignoring a Peace and Security Tool

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz has consistently urged the United Nations to focus on core peace and security tasks and criticized the UN for its talk-shop approach. For example, in July, he urged that "we must press the Security Council on length, cost, clear end states and focusing on peacekeeping, not nation building."

The United States is withdrawing from both the UN Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund. It has never been a major player in these mechanisms, but has increased its engagement and contributions in recent years. These are the United Nations' primary tools for quickly responding to conflict risks or helping countries transition after peacekeepers depart. The flexible funds were instrumental in bringing together warring parties for dialogue, ensuring women's civil society organizations could be represented, and their agility and speed were valuable in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, South Sudan, and Haiti. Many of these are geopolitical and security priorities for the United States.

Given the president's focus on peace deals, the logic for this departure is less clear. By exiting, the United States will no longer influence which countries receive grants and will undercut more stable funding for these mechanisms. With the closure of USAID and the closure or dramatic diminishment of the Department of State bureaus that focus on humanitarian support, conflict, and stabilization, the administration is now on track to concentrate peace efforts only on hard power and dealmaking without addressing the social and root causes of conflicts. Again, in the short term, the impacts may be minimal, but longer-term U.S. withdrawal could hurt both U.S. and international stability efforts.

Failing to Influence International Law

The Trump administration has decided that global norm-setting only constrains the United States rather than helping it. There is a risk that norms could develop that ultimately end up constraining U.S. action. The United States also risks losing an opportunity to restrain the activities of other international law violators, like Russia or other authoritarian states. For example, the International Law Commission is a clunky body, but one that is an incubator for international law. Historically, the United States has had an interest in how it develops and has had a U.S. expert on it who deeply understands the U.S. legal system and can act, even if independently, as a moderating pro-U.S. force. The U.S. candidate lost their election in 2021, and if the administration does not put forward a candidate next year, the status quo will remain without U.S. influence. In the short term, this will have little impact, but there are longer-term implications.

Ceding Sustainable Development to Beijing

The administration continues to remind developing countries that it will not participate in the multilateral forums that many Global South countries find more useful. Coupled with its public rejection of the SDGs, which promote the interests of developing countries in world trade, it is no surprise. Nor is the withdrawal from the Regional Economic Commissions in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

But geopolitical competition continues even when the United States is not looking. Beijing shows up at these forums and dominates the agenda with its economic initiatives. For example, Beijing brings large delegations to the Regional Economic Commissions in Bangkok and Santiago, shaping the normative language in resolutions and promoting Belt and Road initiatives. The last administration was increasingly engaged in these spaces to cultivate partners in the developing world and to promote U.S. economic interests. Now, the United States will not compete, ceding space to others and creating norms and projects that exclude the United States.

What About the Non-UN Institutions?

Each administration routinely reassesses the global coalitions and "clubs" in which it participates, and, unsurprisingly, the Trump administration sought to exit groups such as the International Solar Alliance, the Global Forum on Migration and Development, and International IDEA. The longer-term impact on international cooperation may be real but difficult to observe, as most of the 35 non-UN bodies already involve minimal U.S. funding and sporadic participation, are voluntary and low-cost, and can simply be ignored if deemed unhelpful. Some of these are forums that the U.S. founded. Any effects-such as missing the Global Counterterrorism Forum, withdrawing scientific input from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or ending engagement in the Freedom Online Coalition-will likely only become clear over time. These forums offered platforms to advance U.S. objectives and check "bad ideas," with little financial or political cost to participation, making the rationale for exiting them limited.

The Show Will Go On-Underfunded and Without the United States

The UN Secretary General stated the United Nations will remain committed to carrying out its mandates as given to it by member states.

All of these coalitions and entities will continue without the United States. In the absence of U.S. leadership or participation, the rest of the world will be forced to move on-these impacts will be long-term and take a while to be visible. In the near term, some may start to stumble as the budget cuts hinder their work.

Fundamentally, the United Nations is a collection of member states, and the absence of its strongest and richest state has an impact. But for smaller organizations that do not require significant funding nor benefit from sustained U.S. leadership, they are likely to carry on unbothered. It is the United States that will be weakened in the long term.

Mind the Risks of à la Carte Multilateralism.

This picking and choosing of UN bodies you find useful to your own national aims is not particularly revolutionary-in fact, it's the business of how to drive policy in foreign relations. Every government-even more so for those with fewer resources and diplomats than the United States-should make choices on how to focus its diplomatic capital across international organizations.

So, withdrawing from some UN institutions can make sense. But, for the United States, there are risks to this approach that hold even in the more minor organs of the United Nations that exited last week. The United States is losing options for advancing various policies, missing opportunities for geopolitical competition, and leaving many forums unmonitored.

The presidential memorandum notes that the review of international organizations launched in February 2025 remains ongoing. Perhaps this is the "easy list"-agencies or clubs that cover a particular niche but do not undergird the global security, peace, and humanitarian architecture. There may be more to come months down the road after more internal wrangling over the interests and investments of various departments and agencies.

There is an outstanding opportunity for the administration to use the threat of further withholding to extract specific reforms from remaining agencies. This would be a welcome approach that strengthens multilateral solutions and the United Nations' impact, albeit given the broader rhetoric, unlikely to materialize.

Allison Lombardo is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Humanitarian Agenda and Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

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