The Trump administration has made clear its distain for the multilateral system. As it reviews US participation, Europeans are faced with a tricky balance of selectively embracing these reforms while filling the America-sized hole.
“I’ve always felt that the UN has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to that potential right now.” Such was the benevolent judgment of American president Donald Trump, as he ordered a review of US participation in international organisations and treaties back in February. As the August deadline approaches, it is clear the Trump administration’s approach is not about nurturing multilateral organisations back to health. It is about abandonment or brutal reforms. Washington has already pulled out of or dramatically cut funding for several bodies it sees as constraining its room for manoeuvre and pursuing undesirable agendas.
For the organisations in which it may keep a role, the Trump administration aims to refocus them on their “core missions”—which it will interpret to narrowly reflect US interests rather than action on global challenges such as climate change, health and much of development. European governments, on the other hand, see progress on these issues as essential for global stability. With America pulling back, they must decide how to engage with Trump’s approach while shoring up broader coalitions to salvage cooperation. As the August review nears, Europeans should start working on their balancing act.
MAGA hates multilateralism
The Trump administration holds deep-rooted scepticism—bordering on hostility—towards multilateral institutions. To Trump, international organisations, even treaties, allow rival countries to take advantage of America. For him, they have lost sight of their main mission, inflating to satisfy the demands of the global south without increasing any gains for America. They constrain the US, while adversaries operate freely. (In line with the previous administration’s assessment, they view China as unduly benefitting from the current system.) When the administration formally disavowed the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, it described them as “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans”. In short, international organisations tie America’s hands while delivering little strategic return.
In the administration’s worldview, part of the damage multilateral organisations do to American interests is their promotion of “woke, divisive cultural and social causes”. Washington has also systematically accused UN-affiliated organisations of antisemitic and anti-Israel bias, and decried them as corrupt and sponsors of “terrorism”. Practicing what they preach, Rubio’s state department recently gutted the department responsible for human rights, instead creating an Office of Natural Rights mainly focused on Europe’s supposed free speech problem.
Lastly, Trump and his team see multilateral organisations as bloated and financially dependent on American contributions. It hardly comes as a surprise that the US is intent on massively scaling down its support. For now, however, the Trump administration has not listened to the most extreme recommendations—coming from Elon Musk and Congress, for example—to leave the UN entirely. Nevertheless, it has launched a far-reaching cull of US membership in multilateral organisations, building on moves taken in Trump’s first term. Upon taking office, Trump withdrew the US— once again—from the Paris Climate Agreement, disengaged from the UN Human Rights Council, and has now left UNESCO. Trump also opted out of the World Health Organization, which Trump has held a grudge against since the covid-19 pandemic.
Trump has also taken aim at organisations long under American scrutiny: Trump extended the halt on funding for UNRWA, the UN agency dedicated to Palestinian refugees, which had already been suspended under Biden. Mike Waltz, US ambassador to the UN, is now flagging that he intends to work to dismantle the agency entirely. Trump has also paused financial contributions to the World Trade Organization. Again, little surprise there: the US has already paralysed the organisation by blocking appointments to its appellate body, and Trump’s approach to tariffs could hardly be more antithetical to the WTO’s founding principles.
America needs (some) multilateralism
Still, the US administration appears intent on keeping one foot in wherever it deems convenient. It has made clear it will continue to engage with some key global institutions where America has an influential role. In exchange, Washington demands dramatic reforms to scale back organisations’ goals to the ones America supports.
Trump’s first term set a precedent. In 2018, the US took aim at the Universal Postal Union, claiming outdated classifications favoured Chinese shippers to the detriment of Americans. Threatening to exit the UPU and create major disruptions, the administration was able to obtain a compromise that allowed the US to set its own postal rates, hailed by the White House “a huge victory” for American manufacturers . In this second administration, they are going for more than stamps. They will not shy away from exercising maximum leverage, even on major international organisations.
The essential test, as Waltz said at his Senate confirmation hearing, is whether “every contribution to an international organisation, particularly the UN, draws a straight and direct line to a compelling US national interest.” The US will remain involved in at least some parts of the UN and, as treasury secretary Scott Bessent said in a major speech in April, in the IMF and World Bank. But it will seek to refocus these organisations towards what it sees as their founding principles. In the case of the UN, that means promoting peace and security in the narrowest sense. For the IMF and the World Bank, it means “bringing balance back to global finance” and promoting the conditions for stable and prosperous economies, while eschewing what it sees as ideological distractions like climate change and gender equity. For the Trump team, peace and financial stability help Americans prosper, while other parts of the multilateral agenda simply get in the way.
What’s left
This back-to-basics agenda has particular implications for the UN. Washington has already clawed back large sums of money allocated to UN programmes in areas such as development, health, food security, peacekeeping, and sexual and reproductive health, aiming to curtail “woke and wasteful spending”. In the budget it has prepared for next year, the state department has not allocated funding for the UN regular budget or for its peacekeeping, pending the outcome of the review. Some funding could be directed to UN programmes from other categories, but the administration says that “significant change is needed at the UN.” The US suspension of funding to UN agencies is already leading to cutbacks of life-saving humanitarian aid in countries like South Sudan and Yemen.
The IMF and World Bank have somewhat less to fear. Treasury says that maintaining US funding is essential to preserving US leadership within the financial institutions. The administration has allocated $3.2bn over three years for the International Development Association, the World Bank’s arm for the least developed countries, which is 80% of what President Biden had proposed. But it has proposed to cut all US funding for the World Bank arm that lends to middle-income countries, including for climate-related projects. Similarly, the US will reportedly pursue a “back-to-basics” approach to its G20 presidency next year, limiting the organisation to meetings on high-level diplomacy and financial stability and eliminating coordination on the environment, health and trade.
To reform or to protect
The upcoming review will add more detail to this picture. Above all, it will make clear how brutal the US cuts to UN programmes will be and it could see the US pull out of more organisations. This will leave Europeans with a difficult task.
Europeans should critically evaluate whether any part of the MAGA “back-to-basics” agenda can be selectively embraced because it overlaps with European goals of making the system work better. European countries with a long tradition of propping up multilateralism, such as France, Britain and Germany, should refrain for staying mere guardians of the system—a politically dangerous place to be at a time of growing public distrust of globalist elites. There is room for consolidation, simplification, and prioritisation within the UN system—especially in an age of overlapping crises and constrained resources. The risk however is to be drawn into endorsing the weaponised and selective agenda that underlies the US approach.
At the same time, therefore, European countries will need to build a multilateral framework in the areas America is abandoning. This means investing in alternative coalitions—starting with a G6 core of likeminded democracies and expanding to broader groupings, such as the group invited by Canada at the recent G7 summit, or initiatives like French president Emmanuel Macron’s 4P (Pact for Prosperity, People and the Planet).
Trump’s vision sees areas such as climate, global health, rules-based trade, human rights, and much of global development as antithetical to US interests. The US will also oppose suggestions coming from the global south for greater influence and greater resources. But for Europe, these goals are an essential part of tackling global challenges that directly matter to Europe’s prosperity and security. Especially now, Europeans need to expand efforts to forge wider and more inclusive coalitions of countries that can provide platforms for cooperation in these areas. And the US could eventually join if its political direction changes again.
About the author:
Dr Célia Belin is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office since January 2023.
Anthony Dworkin is senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.