Will Donald Trump gut the United Nations?

In 2001, a New York real estate developer met the then-secretary general of the United Nations to discuss renovations of the UN's midtown Manhattan headquarters.

The UN was mulling a $1.2 billion plan to modernise the 1950s-era building.

The developer told Kofi Annan he could build it better and cheaper even with "brand new marble floors".

But he didn’t get the job.

Who was he? None other than Donald J. Trump.

"I’m a big fan of the United Nations and all it stands for," Mr Trump, by this point a reality TV star, later told a Senate subcommittee hearing on the matter. So much so, that he’d even offered Mr Annan his services for free.

Now Mr Trump is back, this time as President-elect of the United States and he may finally have his chance to gut the United Nations.

But this time there’s a lot more than bricks, mortar and old terrazzo floors on the chopping block.

Here are five key areas where Trump 2.0 could mean big changes for the United Nations.

Money

The US bankrolls the UN to the order of $18bn a year, roughly one third of the UN’s budget.

US contributions – including both assessed pledges (calculated from GDP) and voluntary donations - far outstrip those of any other member state.

The US has a habit of paying late and is often in arrears, causing a visible liquidity crisis at UN headquarters.

During the cold New York winter, for example, UN officials (not to mention UN correspondents) can be observed wearing overcoats and gloves in unheated offices and walking up and down motionless escalators that have been powered off to save money.

But they – that is the US Congress - usually cough up in the end.

And while the UN has grown used to weathering late instalments, it now faces a more permanent crunch.

When Donald Trump first addressed the United Nations General Assembly as president in 2017, he complained about the "unfair cost burden" borne by the US.

It’s a view that has since gained traction on Capitol Hill.

"Defund the UN" became a popular catchphrase during this year’s Republican primaries and a bill designed to do just that has already been proposed in Congress.

Many politicians have seen America’s financial underpinning of the UN as a good investment, helping to maintain its superpower dominance.

But that could change as the UN begins to reflect a more multipolar world.

"The US extracts an outsized benefit from the United Nations," said Anjali Dayal, associate professor of politics at Fordham University in New York, "by virtue of being able to shape international peace and security so enduringly to its own interests."

But as long as the US funds a third or a quarter of the UN’s budget, "other countries should expect that the organisation will be subject to the US’ whims and changes" she said.

The question now is whether other member states will be willing to pony up if the US tightens the purse strings.

Will they put their money where their multipolarity is?

Nobody has offered so far, it seems.

"No, there have been no conversations in that vein," Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary General told RTÉ News.

Health

As Covid-19 swept across the globe, then-president Trump accused the UN’s international health body, WHO, of being too close to China and bungling the early response.

He abruptly withdrew the US from the organisation, sending shockwaves through the global health community in the middle of a pandemic.

Joe Biden reinstated annual contributions to the tune of $700 million.

Will Trump take the axe to WHO again?

That might depend on whether it does America’s bidding, according to Professor Richard Sullivan, from the Centre for Conflict and Health Research at King’s College London.

The new administration may insist on senior personnel changes at WHO or for certain health programmes to be defunded and others bolstered.

"Areas they consider to be 'woke' will be on the chopping board," he said.

"Anything that seems to be pandering under reproductive rights to any form of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) or broader inclusivity areas, any LGBTQ, for example, will absolutely be rejected by the administration," he added.

Trump may reinstate the "global gag rule", as previous Republican administrations have done, prohibiting funding to any non-governmental organisation that offers abortion services.

As for Robert F Kennedy, if confirmed as Health Secretary, he may bring his brand of vaccine-scepticism to the global health scene.

Although the international influence of any individual US health secretary is usually limited, said Professor Sullivan. And anyway, vaccine development is a big business that won’t want profits dented.

"I can’t see America giving up its role as superpower in vaccine technology," he said.

What is likely though, is that China will continue to grow its influence in global health if the US retreats.

But let’s return to China later.

Israel and Palestine

The US has traditionally been the largest donor to UNRWA – the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency. It forked out $344m to the agency in 2022.

But in the wake of Israeli allegations implicating UNRWA employees in the 7 October attacks, the Biden administration cut off further funding.

UN officials put the chances of it being reinstated under Trump around zero.

Once again, will other member states step up?

Not a whisper so far, according to UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.

"Members states never approach you to say they will fill the gap," he told RTÉ News, "they might wait until you are on your knees and strangulated and only then come and save you."

UN insiders also expect Trump to run the most pro-Israel administration for years.

His pick for UN Ambassador, New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik is a staunch supporter of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and a vocal critic of the United Nations, which she calls "a den of antisemitism."

Ms Stefanik praised Donald Trump’s decision to re-locate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (which the UN considers under Israeli occupation) in 2018 – a move applauded by Israel’s government, but which deeply upset the Palestinian leadership and Arab nations.

If the UN does not bend to US demands on Israel, Ms Stefanik is likely to call for funding to be withheld.

Writing in the Washington Examiner in September, Congresswoman Stefanik said the US must present the UN with a choice: "Reform this broken system and return it to the beacon of peace and freedom the world needs it to be or continue down this antisemitic path without the support of American taxpayers".

In her sights could also be the Human Rights Council, from which the US withdrew under Trump’s last term, accusing the body of anti-Israel prejudice.

And there’s the International Criminal Court, of which the US is not a member, but in 2020, Trump slapped sanctions on the court’s chief prosecutor, again over criticism of Israel as well as its investigation into allegations of US war crimes in Afghanistan.

We can expect the same reaction to the ICC’s arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In UN General Assembly votes, the wider UN membership has overwhelmingly condemned Israel’s ongoing military bombardment of Gaza which is estimated to have killed 44,000 Palestinians.

But in the 15-member Security Council – the UN’s highest decision-making body - the Biden administration has deployed its veto multiple times in the past year to shield Israel from UN action.

It’s widely recognised within the UN system though, that the US abstentions, which did allow votes on humanitarian access to Gaza to pass, were driven by the US mission in New York, actively pushing back against White House policy.

"We should not anticipate seeing that in an US Mission to the United Nations led by Elise Stefanik", said Prof Dayal.

Climate

When Donald Trump takes office next year, one of the first things he’s expected to do is pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement that he first quit in 2017 – that’s the UN-brokered pact to reduce carbon emissions and limit global temperature rises to 1.5C.

Trump is likely to turn his back on the American climate leadership fostered under Biden with his appointment of former US Secretary of State John Kerry as special envoy.

After all, "drill, baby, drill" is one of his favourite catchphrases and music to the ears of America’s fossil fuel industry.

He has chosen a fracking executive, Chris Wright, to head up his energy department.

"There is no climate crisis, and we're not in the midst of an energy transition either," Wright said in a video post on social media in 2023.

For climate experts, it’s a dark moment.

"It’s the worst nightmare possible," said Allison Chatrchyan, adjunct professor of environmental law at Cornell University in New York.

"We won’t have a pavilion at the COPs (the UN’s annual climate summit), we won’t be playing a leadership role and none of the other countries will take us seriously," she said.

"I just cannot express the stupidity and absolute insanity of the US pulling out of the Paris Agreement," she added.

America’s departure from the Paris deal could set off a domino effect through the other 194 signatories. Why should they be bound by restrictive carbon emission caps if the US – one of the world’s top polluters – is not?

But Trump could run into headwinds on climate policy domestically. Much of the investment on new energy infrastructure under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act has been spent in Republican-controlled states and its proven popular among voters. Lawmakers may resist any attempt to repeal it.

And American business will be reluctant to fall behind globally, where there is "incredible momentum for green investments and green energy," Professor Chatrchyan added.

If not America, then who?

China, of course.

If the US retreats from the United Nations again, China is poised to step into the breach, capitalising on its progress during the first Trump administration.

Expanding its influence in multilateral institutions has been a long-term goal of the Chinese regime and it has made key UN personnel appointments in recent years.

China has also increased its contributions to the organisation to become he UN’s second biggest funder, behind the United States.

"You’ve seen a lot more of a push from Beijing that they have solutions for the Gaza crisis, for the Ukraine war or for the ongoing Myanmar conflict," said Courtney Fung, non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

China will want to project a constant, firm, steady hand in global governance, in contrast to what was seen as a much more chaotic US withdrawal under the last Trump administration, she said.

But in the absence of US leadership, other countries may look to China for cash as well as crisis management, and that is not cost-free for Beijing.

"Then China actually has to come up with real, viable solutions versus broad initiatives and talking points," she said, "and that’s a very complicated space for Beijing to negotiate".

But it does open the door wider for China’s efforts to prise the UN from its roots in western liberal values, like individual freedoms and human rights, and nudge it towards the emphasis on development and security, favoured by Beijing.

The irony, of course, it that much of the antipathy among Republican lawmakers towards the UN in Washington is based on suspicion of China’s creeping influence within the multilateral system – something US disengagement is likely to accelerate.

But in the end, how much the United Nations is rocked by Trump 2.0 will depend on what version of Trump takes office.

"Trump is not reflexively hostile to the UN, in fact in many ways he likes the organisation," said Anjali Dayal.

Indeed, when he told the 2005 US Senate subcommittee how much of a fan of the United Nations he was, he pointed to his decision to build Trump World Tower – a gold and black skyscraper that dwarfs UN headquarters - just opposite.

He’s said to enjoy the pomp and ceremony of addressing the General Assembly and the global platform it offers.

And in his last term, he developed a friendly working relationship with Secretary General António Guterres, who has two years of his tenure left to run.

Moreover, the incoming administration has promised big on border security, trade tariffs and ending the war in Ukraine – all of which will keep US Congress occupied for some time.

That means a slash and burn approach at the United Nations just may not be a priority for the foreseeable.

Many UN officials are certainly keeping their fingers crossed it stays that way.