If Congress this month approves the White House’s request to cancel $1 billion in federal funding for the United Nations system, experts say it will further exacerbate an already crisis-level financial shortfall for the global intergovernmental organization that the U.S. worked over decades to sustain.
The Trump administration included $1 billion in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025 funding spread across three different accounts in its $9.4 billion rescissions proposal that the Senate could take up next week. The proposed cuts include funding for UNICEF, which supports children’s well-being, the World Health Organization, the U.N. regular budget and international peacekeeping missions in Lebanon and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
But even as the focus is on whether the Senate will clear the rescissions request before the clock runs out on midnight July 18, questions still loom over the fate of billions more in mandatory and voluntary contributions to U.N. agencies that the White House froze at the start of Trump’s second term.
