Trump exits US from 66 additional UN agencies and international organisations, strips funding

The US is pulling its membership and financial support from more than 60 global agencies US President Donald Trump has deemed ’contrary to the interests of the United States’ under the terms of an executive order signed in February 2025. 

In a memorandum to US governmental departments’ and agencies’ leaders published on the White House website on 7 January, President Trump directed his government’s apparatus to take immediate steps to withdraw from a list of 31 United Nations (UN) and another 35 international organisations. 

The basis for the withdrawal, Executive Order 14199 (Withdrawing the United States from and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations), assigned US Secretary of State Marco Rubio the task of reviewing US commitments to international intergovernmental organisations and treaties to decide which of the international instruments align with US interests.

"I have considered the Secretary of State’s report and, after deliberating with my Cabinet, have determined that it is contrary to the interests of the United States to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support to the organizations listed," Mr Trump wrote in his memorandum, noting "my review of further findings of the Secretary of State remains ongoing."

In a statement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio went further, saying the Trump Administration found the institutions to be "redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity".

"President Trump is clear: it is no longer acceptable to be sending these institutions the blood, sweat, and treasure of the American people, with little to nothing to show for it. The days of billions of dollars in taxpayer money flowing to foreign interests at the expense of our people are over," the statement said.

Mr Rubio further claimed that the group of international organisations on the list – despite beginning as a ’pragmatic framework’ for ’peace and co-operation’ – "has morphed into a sprawling architecture of global governance, often dominated by progressive ideology and detached from national interests".

Among the alleged ’progressive ideology,’ Mr Rubio listed efforts to equalise representation of different groups among personnel, known by the shorthand diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, and work to combat climate change. Mr Rubio’s statement lumped both types of work under what he called "the discredited fantasy of the ’End of History’" and claimed the organisations listed "actively seek to constrain American sovereignty".

Some of the agencies that may be affected by the latest actions of the Trump administration include the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law, the Global Counterterrorism Forum, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Forum, the International Renewable Energy Agency and the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia.

Similar organisations within the UN that are likely to be impacted include the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the International Trade Centre, the International Law Commission, the UN Democracy Fund, UN Energy, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and UN Oceans.

In both of his terms as US President, Mr Trump has regularly withdrawn the US from United Nations agreements and sought to extract the US from international commitments, with a stated ’America First’ foreign and domestic policy position characterised as either protectionist or isolationist by analysts. 

In addition to withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in both of his presidencies, Mr Trump has suspended US support for the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO and the World Health Organisation.

The US, under Trump, has also waded into advanced negotiations on decarbonising the shipping industry at the industry’s UN-based international regulatory body, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), during his second term of office.

After the US delegation walked out of negotiations in the IMO’s early 2025 meeting of its Marine Environment Protection Committee, Mr Trump and his administration pursued a policy of open threats aimed at countries which failed to support Mr Trump’s desire to ’defeat’ the IMO climate framework. 

In October 2025, the months-long pressure campaign by the US helped to delay a vote on the adoption of the IMO Net-Zero Framework and its carbon levy by at least a year.