When President Donald Trump asked the UN General Assembly in September, “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” he wasn’t posing a philosophical question. He was announcing a policy shift. Weeks later, Ambassador Jeff Bartos addressed the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee, praising Secretary-General António Guterres’s proposed budget cuts as “only a beginning.” The Trump administration framed this as “reform.” In practice, it signaled a broader retreat from—and redefinition of—the postwar multilateral order the United States once championed.

This retreat is not uniquely American. In the past year alone, major donors including Canada, the UK, and Germany have slashed foreign aid budgets, undermining a decades-old consensus that human dignity is a shared global responsibility. According to The Lancet, US aid cuts alone could result in more than 14 million deaths, including 4.5 million children under five. What’s at stake is not simply institutional funding—but lives, legitimacy, and the future of shared governance.

Redefining “Reform”

Since the UN’s founding, successive US administrations have at times criticized inefficiencies in the system or sought to streamline mandates. The United States has also, at critical junctures, acted unilaterally in ways that strained the multilateral framework—most notably the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which proceeded without Security Council authorization. Yet earlier departures from multilateralism were typically framed as exceptions to a system the US still claimed to uphold. What distinguishes the current moment is not the occasional breach but the systematic dismantling of the architecture itself.

Earlier signals of unilateralism—such as John Bolton’s open disdain for the UN or Nikki Haley’s demands to slash peacekeeping budgets—paved the way for a more sustained and institutionalized retreat under the Trump administration, where “reform” became a euphemism for retrenchment.

Trump-era officials have used multilateral reform processes, like the UN80 Initiative launched by Guterres ahead of the UN’s 80th anniversary, as levers to enforce austerity and ideological alignment. In response to US pressure, the secretary-general proposed eliminating over 2,600 posts and cutting $500 million—an unprecedented reduction. Rather than viewing this as compromise, Ambassador Bartos called it “only a beginning” and used his Fifth Committee address to push for “deeper cuts to wasteful spending,” demanding that reductions become “the rule, not the exception.”

The strategy is clear: defund the UN until it falters, then cite its dysfunction as proof that multilateralism itself has failed.

Delegitimizing Multilateralism

Bartos’s attack on staff compensation—housing subsidies, education grants, and tax exemptions—was framed as a defense of common sense against institutional excess. He challenged delegates to justify UN salaries to “first responders, farmers, and factory workers” back home. Yet the UN Common System is benchmarked to national civil services—including the US—to ensure parity and attract global talent. The controversy lies less in the numbers than in the narratives constructed around them.

This is not fiscal conservatism; it is an ideological contest over control. By casting multilateral expertise as elitism and global norms as threats to sovereignty, the administration seeks to recast cooperation itself as a form of overreach.

This has led to a form of à la carte engagement. Rather than withdrawing outright, the US increasingly cherry-picks institutions and initiatives that serve immediate strategic goals while defunding or sidelining those perceived as constraints.

In peacekeeping, Bartos’s call for “clear exit strategies” aligns with a shift toward transactional metrics and short-term outputs. Washington’s push to convert assessed peacekeeping contributions into voluntary funding mirrors similar trends in development aid—where global public goods are selectively financed based on geopolitical priorities, not collective need.

As Rajiv Shah recently wrote, the postwar vision rested on the premise that “powerful nations came together around the concept of universal dignity, codifying that idea into institutions like the United Nations.” While Shah sees promise in new country-led development models, that foundational vision of shared institutional responsibility is now being hollowed out in the name of efficiency.

The new model reduces multilateralism to utility: the UN is useful only insofar as it delivers immediate returns on American investment. The record is instructive. Under Trump, the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement, UNESCO, and the UN Human Rights Council—each time citing sovereignty or inefficiency. None of these exits included plans for constructive reform or alternative engagement.

This pattern differs from earlier moments of unilateral action. When the United States bypassed the Security Council to invade Iraq in 2003, it claimed exceptionalism but did not question the legitimacy of the UN itself. Today’s retreat goes further: it challenges not just specific decisions but the premise that multilateral institutions deserve deference or resources.

A Vacuum Being Filled

American disengagement has created space that other actors are rushing to fill—but not to reinforce the existing order. China has increased funding to UN development programs while simultaneously working through international bodies like the International Telecommunication Union to advance digital standards aligned with its state-centric governance model—one that emphasizes sovereignty over data flows and state control over digital infrastructure. Russia has paralyzed the Security Council to deflect accountability for its actions in Ukraine and Syria while using UN platforms to amplify disinformation about Western interventionism.

Private technology firms have also moved into governance spaces once reserved for intergovernmental consensus. Microsoft has partnered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on digital identity systems since 1999, while Palantir’s controversial $45 million contract with the World Food Programme raised concerns about corporate access to data on over 90 million aid recipients. These partnerships now shape humanitarian data practices in realms like refugee registration, biometric data management, and aid logistics.

The effects are uneven. In some cases, the US absence may actually have facilitated multilateral agreement. For example, observers have argued that the Pandemic Treaty may not have come to fruition—or at least would have been less equitable—if the US has remained involved. Similarly, some have argued that the US withdrawal from the Sevilla conference on financing for development helped clear the path for an agreement. Yet this comes at considerable cost: fragmented legitimacy, reduced implementation capacity, and the risk that norms agreed upon without the buy-in of major powers remain aspirational rather than actionable.

The UN80 Moment

The UN’s 80th anniversary was meant to reaffirm the enduring purpose of the institution. Instead, it risks becoming a referendum on whether multilateralism can adapt to an age of executive unilateralism and algorithmic governance.

What is being lost is not only funding or personnel but faith among both member states and civil society that a rules-based system can hold power accountable to principle. When the United States can withdraw from the WHO mid-pandemic without consequence or defund peacekeeping missions in active conflict zones based on quarterly budget reviews, the message to other states is clear: commitments are conditional, and multilateral obligations can be abandoned when politically inconvenient. What is being reshaped is not just the United Nations but the very idea that legitimacy can be multilateral.

Promising alternatives are emerging. As Shah notes, leaders in the Global South are “taking ownership of their countries’ own development,” experimenting with tech-enabled solutions and new models of financing. But while these shifts are important, they cannot yet replace the institutional legitimacy and collective capacity that multilateralism—at its best—can provide.

The question now is whether the United States, as one of the system’s original architects, will continue to hollow out multilateralism’s foundations or reclaim a leadership model grounded in sustained engagement, predictable funding, and accountability to collective agreements—not just selective participation when convenient.

Multilateralism has always been imperfect—but it remains indispensable. Reform is indeed needed, but it must be grounded in renewal, not retreat.