As the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) kicks into high gear, it offers a glimpse into what a world devoid of Washington’s diplomacy might look like. Eight months into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, his choice for U.N. ambassador only presented his credentials at headquarters in New York on Sunday, while the United States has yet to pay a dime of its assessed U.N. contributions this year.
Many thorny issues could be discussed when Trump sits down for a bilateral meeting with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday. The United States is the largest financial contributor to the United Nations, but Trump has withheld even mandatory contributions to the U.N. budget—a decision that has plunged the organization into a fiscal crisis with existential implications.
Trump’s new U.N. ambassador, Mike Waltz—who served as national security advisor for a few months and is a former Florida congressman and U.S. Army Special Forces colonel—was confirmed by the Senate last Friday, just a few days before one of the year’s biggest diplomatic events. Trump’s pick for deputy ambassador to the U.N., Tammy Bruce, has also been spotted in New York this week, though she hasn’t begun the formal process of Senate confirmation.
After Trump’s inauguration, a small group of professional U.S. diplomats began minding the fort in New York, though they were kept on a short leash. After months of relative disengagement, the U.S. delegation to UNGA might not find much to their liking when they sweep into headquarters this week. The agenda is packed with events promoting goals that the Trump administration sees as peripheral or actively opposes. Decisions have been made without much U.S. involvement, though some diplomats describe back-channel negotiations on issues where there is broad consensus.
The one thing that might please the U.S. delegation is talk of deep reductions in the U.N. budget. The last-minute preparations for this high-level week took place amid a frantic belt-tightening process. The United States usually pays 22 percent of the regular U.N. budget and around 26 percent of the peacekeeping budget, thus Trump’s decision not to provide even obligatory contributions this year has left a big hole.
This financial pressure is sparking dread throughout the U.N. system. Though the United States could theoretically withhold payments to the United Nations indefinitely and remain a permanent member of the Security Council, it would lose its vote in the General Assembly after two years in arrears. If the United States falls further behind on its contributions, it could change how the U.N. system operates; typically, nationals from the largest contributors are hired to run agencies or programs. China, the second-largest contributor to the U.N.’s regular budget, has been lobbying for years to put more of its nationals into senior and mid-level positions within the U.N. bureaucracy.
Ahead of the high-level week, Guterres sent a revised U.N. budget to member states and an advisory committee. Preliminary figures released last week reveal that more than 18 percent of the U.N.’s staff positions are slated for elimination. Years of hiring restrictions mean that some of those posts are vacant. Furthermore, another 262 positions are being proposed for relocation. A senior U.N. official said that they were no longer talking about doing more with less but rather “doing less with less.”
As the plan for downsizing, euphemistically dubbed UN80, drags on, many diplomats in New York seem to be experiencing a loss of purpose. “I think a lot of diplomats are frustrated that the current UN80 process has not involved much discussion of what the U.N.’s main goals should be, rather than how many jobs to cut,” said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at the International Crisis Group.
Nearly 150 heads of state and government are in New York this week, and as usual, the serious diplomacy will happen on the sidelines. Guterres, who will complete his 10-year tenure at the end of next year, has more than 150 bilateral meetings planned. With Trump, he could discuss the UN80 process, which envisions a major restructuring of the U.N. system. Many conversations on the sidelines will revolve around the candidates vying to become the next secretary-general. As the United States holds significant sway, Trump might want to sound out Guterres on the challenges that could face his successor.
On Monday, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom will reiterate their recognition of Palestinian statehood, which was confirmed on Sunday. In July, France and Saudi Arabia organized what they named the New York Declaration, which calls for the creation of an independent state of Palestine, though even some supporters acknowledge that the gesture is largely symbolic.
Guterres described this as a step toward statehood: “Obviously, one thing is to recognize the state of Palestine. The other thing is the state of Palestine being able to fully exercise the rights of sovereignty,” he said in a press conference last week. “I hope that there will be a serious negotiation leading to that.”
Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., likened the planned declarations to a circus sideshow: “Everybody knows that it isn’t binding, and it serves mostly their domestic needs,” he told Foreign Policy. “It demonstrates the naiveté of the players that they think if they call for the disarmament of Hamas that it will actually take place.”
Allies of the Palestinians are preparing to spend this week highlighting the New York Declaration after the General Assembly voted in support of it on Sept. 12. The United States and Israel were among only 10 member states to vote against it, making Washington especially isolated on the issue. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday—but last month, the United States revoked his visa to travel to New York.
The move, thus preventing Abbas from appearing in person, left many U.N. diplomats dismayed. He will instead address the assembly remotely. Some have drawn comparisons with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech in 2022, when his video image hovered above the General Assembly just months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will continue the tradition of delivering the first speech of the high-level week by a world leader; Trump will follow him. This year, this speaking order could have resonance. The two leaders are at loggerheads over 50 percent tariffs that Trump imposed on many imports from Brazil, despite the U.S. trade surplus with the country. Lula has called the tariffs political and illogical and may use his speech to attack Trump’s trade policies.
All eyes will be on Trump’s speech, though. With his U.N. ambassador at his side, the president could use the address to relaunch the U.S. presence at the U.N. with a promise to support the institution amid a fiscal crisis largely of Washington’s making. Trump could also take the opportunity to rail against what he perceives to be the U.N.’s shortcomings, from an agenda that he sees as straying too far from security to allegations of antisemitism.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech on Friday will also be watched closely. Some diplomats speculate that—after the show of support for Palestinians—he might use his UNGA address to announce a new escalation in the war in Gaza.
Zelensky will address the General Assembly on Wednesday, following a Security Council meeting to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine the day before. However, the war in Gaza has pushed the conflict from the central role that it held at UNGA two years ago, when Zelensky dominated the conversation simply by showing up.
There will be high-level sideline events focused on de-escalating the conflicts in Somalia and Sudan. David Miliband, International Rescue Committee chief executive and a former foreign minister of the United Kingdom, recently returned from Sudan and described the civil war there, now in its third year, as a “catastrophe of staggering proportions.”
Many of the sideline events will be hosted at the missions of member states clustered around the U.N. building, alongside sessions on such hot-button topics as immigration, women’s rights, and climate change. The Security Council will host a midweek debate about artificial intelligence—notably, its first session ever chaired by a sitting South Korean president.
These diverse priorities were spelled out in the “Pact for the Future,” which was approved by consensus by the General Assembly last year, just two months before Trump’s reelection, bringing the curtain down on that freewheeling era.
This month, Guterres unveiled a report mandated by the Pact for the Future that criticized rising military spending and urged countries to redirect that money toward foreign aid. The report could not seem more out of step with the moment. NATO member states, facing the threat of Russian aggression, recently decided to increase their military spending to 5 percent of GDP—and some are cutting foreign aid budgets to ease the strain.
Gowan suspected that the report would go down poorly with the countries that have already trimmed their foreign aid packages: “You can’t shoot down Russian drones with a Sustainable Development Goal,” he said.
Ironically, the impotence shown by the U.N. Security Council in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is spurring European rearmament—which only feels more urgent after Russia’s repeated violations of NATO airspace in Estonia, Poland, and Romania. “Russia uses these reckless actions as a provocation, to instill fear and to project a sense of military might,” Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Toiu told Foreign Policy last week, after a Russian drone flew for 50 minutes over Romanian territory.
Toiu cited her country’s investment in modernizing an air force base to host NATO allies as proof that they were responding seriously to the threat. She intends to raise the issue of Russia’s drone incursions in New York this week.
Though it has typically made major voluntary contributions to the U.N., the United States is now responsible for the largest cuts in those contributions to the organization, primarily to its main emergency relief agency. But a senior U.N. official said that the pressure of defense spending meant that some European countries were also paring back voluntary contributions. “They’ll be more selective in their contributions,” the official said.
Many diplomats expressed belief that the U.N. system would benefit from some downsizing and restructuring. But the United States can only help shape this new vision by showing up.