Throughout this week, the Washington Examiner’s Restoring America project will feature its latest series, “Reforming the Deep State: Reining in the Federal Bureaucracy.” We invited some of the best policy minds in the conservative movement to speak to the issues of what waste, fraud, abuse, and unaccountability exist throughout the federal government and what still needs to be done. To read more from this series, click here.

President Donald Trump has taken unprecedented steps in reevaluating America’s relationship with the United Nations. He has withdrawn from several organizations, launched a comprehensive review of United States membership in all international organizations and multilateral treaties, and sharply curtailed U.S. funding to these organizations. These actions have caused great apprehension within the affected organizations and among other governments, who worry about the effect on international programs and initiatives that they deem valuable.

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But there is a significant upside for which Americans, other nations, and even the U.N. should be grateful. This fiscal crisis has forced U.N. organizations to confront the bloat, mission creep, and inefficiencies that have infected them over decades. If the result of this process is a leaner, more effective United Nations, then both the donor nations that support the U.N. system and the many people who depend on its programs will benefit.

The United Nations and its affiliated organizations can do good work and support U.S. interests, but they depend disproportionately on the U.S. taxpayer to fund their activities. For instance, in 2023, the U.S. was responsible for nearly 28% of all government contributions to the U.N. system. For the U.N. regular and peacekeeping budgets, the U.S. is charged 22% and 26.1584%, which is more than the amount that 184 nations are charged for those two budgets combined.

The U.S. has been particularly generous to the U.N.’s humanitarian organizations. For instance, U.S. contributions in 2023 accounted for over 40% of all contributions to the World Food Program, the International Organization for Migration, and the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees.

In short, when it comes to paying the bills in Turtle Bay, the U.S. has historically signed the biggest checks. And when disasters happen, Uncle Sam has been No. 1 on the U.N.’s speed dial.

But that generosity is given short shrift when the U.S. proposes reforms or changes to reduce costs, improve efficiency or effectiveness, or simply reduce the burden on U.S. taxpayers. Too often, the U.S. is ignored or outvoted. Historically, reforms are adopted most often after the U.S. withholds funding linked to adopting those reforms.

History is repeating.

The current liquidity crisis precipitated by U.S. withholding has forced the United Nations to float significant budgetary reductions and reforms. Earlier this year, Secretary General António Guterres announced the UN80 reform initiative aimed at reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and reducing waste.

There are three main planks: adopting cost savings that the Secretary General can implement under his existing authority such as freezing hiring or shifting staff to lower cost locations; identifying and reviewing approximately 4,000 mandates (tasks ranging from peacekeeping operations to reports) adopted by the member states for duplication and ongoing relevance; and consideration of structural reforms and consolidation of offices, funds, programs, and agencies across the U.N. system.

These efforts are overdue. In fact, they echo past reform efforts championed by the US that were ultimately rejected or shelved.

In 2011, for instance, the U.S. Mission to the U.N. called for budgetary constraints and, critically, noted that “74 cents out of every dollar the United Nations spends is related to personnel costs.” The U.S. called for a pay freeze, repealing a pay raise for U.N. staff, terminating vacant posts, opposing upward reclassification of U.N. jobs that would result in higher pay, and a review of U.N. benefits.

For the most part, U.S. efforts to address rampant staff costs were ignored.

In 2005, the U.S. led an effort to compile a list of U.N. mandates to review for relevance, effectiveness, and duplication. The initial, partial review concluded that only 155 (56%) of the 279 mandates in the Humanitarian cluster were “current and relevant” and that only 18 (35%) of the 52 mandates in the African Development cluster were current and relevant.

The U.N. General Assembly refused to act on these conclusions and, instead, quietly killed that mandate review.

The financial crisis precipitated by the U.S. has resuscitated interest in these reforms. It is unclear if UN80 will result in more substantive implementation, but crisis focuses the mind as demonstrated by the U.N. Secretary General admitting the U.N. has too many meetings (“27,000 meetings involving 240 bodies”) straining the system, publishes increasingly lengthy reports that few people read (“one in five reports receives fewer than 1,000 downloads”), and is rife with duplication (over “30 per cent of the subjects of resolutions adopted in 1990 were still the subject of resolutions in 2024”).

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE ‘REFORMING THE DEEP STATE’ SERIES

The Trump administration and Congress are determined to use U.S. funding to change the UN system. Good faith requires them to be specific in their requests, engaged in the negotiations, and, critically, be willing to restore U.S. funding if America’s reform demands are met.

If the outcome of Trump’s withholding is to force the U.N. to review its activities, reorient staff to reduce costs, and consolidate and restructure programs, it will be well worth the angst and diplomatic kerfuffle.

Brett D. Schaefer is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.