James Arity

The Trump administration does not agree fundamentally

with what the United Nations is doing and how it is spending Americans' money.

The US is the biggest donor to the UN traditionally, and by not paying, the Trump administration is trying to put pressure on the world body to cut its expenses and to do less and to be more careful about how it's spending the money.

And the United Nations actually has been cutting its budget by historic proportions.

It's reduced its budget for 2026 by 7%.

It's laid off thousands.

It's closed offices.

It's pulled peacekeepers back from war zones.

And the Trump administration wants more of that.

It feels that there's overlap between some of the major agencies in the United Nations among the things that they would like to do.

is AI translation instead of having physical translators there.

They would like to see less business class travel by its top officials and a number of other what they call quick wins that could save the U.N.

money.

China is compounding the UN's liquidity crisis by holding back its money, slow walking its contributions to the organization.

Beijing says it's the number one defender of the United Nations and the multilateral system and is really jabbing at the US right now by even describing itself as the de facto number one financial contributor.

But the fact is China used to pay on time and in full

And while it is probably going to pay in full, it is not paying on time.

And that's causing a lot of stress within the organization because China is the number two contributor to the United Nations.

Between the U.S.

and China, 42% of the regular budget comes from just these two countries.