Trump rethinking American support for United Nations: President Donald Trump has already pulled back $1 billion in funding from the United Nations (U.N.) and has told Congress he has plans to revoke another $1 billion. Since bureaucrats always and everywhere are fans of malicious compliance, U.N. officials signaled that human rights programs would be some of the first to go. But now The New York Times headlines are trying to guilt the U.S. into…I dunno…spending infinite sums of money? Never pulling out or reevaluating the use of the diplomacy organization?
Of course, countries run by authoritarians seek to step into the breach. "Qatar, with its history of labor abuses, is offering to host some of the offices of the U.N. workers' rights agency," reports the Times. "Russia has proposed cutting speaking time for advocacy groups to save money on hearings. Eritrea has called for an end to a U.N. investigation into human rights abuses there. The countries are 'using every opportunity, including the opportunity presented by the liquidity crisis and at high-level meetings, to try and advance their agenda,' said Phil Lynch, the executive director of International Service for Human Rights, a nongovernmental group focused on U.N. advocacy in Geneva. 'Cuts are on the table, and it opens a window of opportunity for them.'" That's always a risk, but overreliance on the U.S. as the bulwark stopping such a takeover places an unreasonable, costly burden at our feet.
"The U.S. continues to be assessed by the UN at an unfair rate, currently paying 26.1 percent of all global peacekeeping activities," reads a State Department report from earlier this year. "The U.S. is one of five members (P5) on the UN Security Council (UNSC) with permanent veto authority, yet the other P5 members' assessments average under nine percent. Congress has sought to reduce the United States' assessment by capping assessments at 25 percent, and yet success of that is questionable: as a result, over $1.5 billion of arrears have accrued. Due to these recent abuses and failures, and amidst the disproportionately high level of fiscal burden, it is clear that significant change is needed at the UN."
