Donald Trump doesn't believe in the international order as the victorious allies envisioned it following World War II.
The United States joined Britain and France (with a reluctant Soviet Union following along) to create an international system of cooperation designed to make the world so interdependent that war would be only a distant memory. The allies created the United Nations and a few international organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) formed in 1945, and the World Health Organization (WHO) created in 1948.
Also, UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) was created in 1946 to provide emergency food and healthcare to children and mothers in countries that World War II left devastated. These organizations, along with the International Labor Organization (ILO) were to be the linchpins to tie together the brave new world.
Like every single bureaucracy in the history of civilized man, the 75 years since these organizations were formed have seen the original worthy purpose of these organizations warped beyond recognition. Poor or nonexistent leadership, flaws in the design of how these organizations were formed and governed, and simple greed and graft have made these organizations useless, or at the very least, horrendously profligate.
The UN continues to conduct business as usual while international bureaucrats and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) abscond with money meant for the poor or misdirect funds for their own aggrandizement.
Donald Trump decided to end the gravy train for 31 UN agencies and 35 other international organizations, citing waste, conflicting agendas, and threats to U.S. sovereignty, including key climate bodies such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and groups focused on health and women's rights, a move that the UN met with concern.
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said, "As we have consistently underscored, assessed contributions to the United Nations regular budget and peacekeeping budget, as approved by the General Assembly, are a legal obligation under the UN Charter for all Member States, including the United States."
The strong retort from the U.N. comes after the world body has spent the better part of the past year in a somewhat hostile and fragile back-and-forth with U.S. officials, who, after Trump's return to office, zeroed in on eliminating billions of dollars in aid and funding to international organizations like the U.N. and humanitarian assistance at large.
Through many conciliatory public and closed-door appeals, U.N. officials, including Guterres, had been able to convince Trump and his allies not to completely abandon the institution the U.S. helped found on the ashes of World War II, including through a $2 billion agreement for humanitarian assistance announced last month. But America's retreat had already influenced other Western countries, including France and the U.K., to reevaluate humanitarian funding, with many shifting that money toward military spending.
Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali once famously remarked that "perhaps half of the UN work force does nothing useful," suggesting a significant amount of systemic waste.
While the World Bank suggested that up to 20% to 30% of global aid is lost to corruption, independent experts often refer to these as "zombie statistics" because they are widely cited, but difficult to verify with hard data. Nevertheless, cut those figures in half, and you have a gargantuan waste of American and other nations' taxes that fund the UN.
The UN is corrupt, hysterically anti-American, and antithetical to a peaceful, productive world order. If it wants money to save the kids, empower women, maintain peace agreements, and monitor disease outbreaks, it needs to make massive reforms to its operations.
The gravy train that fed corruption ends now.
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