Trump Administration Pushes UN "Back to Basics" with Major Budget Cuts

Testifying before lawmakers at a congressional hearing in New York, Waltz defended the administration's effort to overhaul the UN, arguing that decades of expansion have not delivered proportional results.

"The UN truly does need to get what we're calling back to basics," he said, adding that it must return "to its original mission from its founding back to maintaining international peace and security".

Waltz pointed to a sharp rise in spending, noting that "the UN's budget in the last 25 years has quadrupled", without a corresponding improvement in global stability.

"We have not seen arguably a quadrupling of peace and security around the world commensurate with those hard-earned dollars," he said.

The ambassador made clear that Washington now views its funding as leverage to drive reform, not as an automatic contribution.

"The US will not fund organisations that act contrary to our interests," Waltz said, signalling a tougher stance on agencies seen as inefficient or misaligned with US priorities.

He outlined a series of reforms already underway, including a 15 percent cut to the UN's regular budget for 2026, amounting to $570 million. The reduction is expected to eliminate nearly 3,000 positions and lower US contributions.

"For our contribution, it will reduce our assessment by $126 million," he said.

Waltz said the administration is also pushing for a 25 per cent reduction in peacekeeping troops and a broader restructuring of long-running missions.

"Some of them have been around for 30, 50, even 80 years," he said, warning that such operations risk becoming permanent without delivering political solutions.

Recent steps include winding down or closing missions in Iraq and Yemen, and reviewing operations in Lebanon and Western Sahara.

He also highlighted changes to peacekeeping reimbursements, saying countries will now be paid only if equipment is actively used, rather than simply deployed.

"These are the kind of common sense reforms that I think are pretty hard to argue with," Waltz said.

Beyond peacekeeping, the US is targeting what it sees as duplication and inefficiency across UN agencies. Waltz described situations where multiple organisations operate overlapping programmes in the same countries.

"We've now pulled a lot of our funding that will force these agencies to use the same warehouses, use the same aviation, use the same vehicle fleets," he said.

The broader strategy, he added, is to streamline operations while improving accountability and oversight.

Waltz also signalled a shift in development policy, emphasising private investment over traditional aid flows.

"What we're trying to do... is to pull in the private sector," he said, describing efforts to align UN programmes with economic development and job creation.

He said future US funding would depend on "efficiency, effectiveness and accountability", and reiterated that organisations failing to meet these standards could lose support.

At the same time, Waltz stressed that the US remains committed to engagement with the UN, even as it pushes for reform.

"If we walked away tomorrow... it would be reinvented somewhere else," he said, arguing that continued US presence is essential to shaping global outcomes.

- IANS