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Amid the dreariness of mid-winter and the relentless bombardment of unsettling news, there may be a silver lining for those seeking a touch of optimism. The United Nations is reportedly on the brink of financial collapse, with operations potentially grinding to a halt by the end of February. If this fiscal crisis persists, the last of the UN’s bureaucrats might find themselves receiving final paychecks by July—assuming those checks don’t bounce.
How did we arrive at this precarious juncture? The explanation is, to some extent, as perplexing as it is intriguing.
In the fiscal year 2025, the United States contributed a substantial $1.3 billion to the UN. This amount included $820 million allocated for regular budgeted activities, with the remainder funding various initiatives that some might view as frivolous. As of now, the United States has yet to pay its 2026 assessment, although the funds have been appropriated. The root of the UN’s financial woes appears to be a self-inflicted wound, leaving it to lament the resulting discomfort.
Consider this: the UN sets a budget, yet when a particular program isn’t implemented, the program’s entire budget must be refunded, despite the funds never having been collected in the first place.
While open to corrections, this interpretation seems consistent across multiple sources, suggesting that nations could potentially receive rebates even if they haven’t fulfilled their financial obligations.
How did we get to this state of near nirvana? Part of the story seems to be utter nonsense.
The United States is responsible for about 95 percent of the money owed to the United Nations, about $2.2 billion, according to a senior U.N. official who briefed reporters on the agency’s budget crisis. That amount is a combination of the U.S. annual dues for 2025, which has not been paid, and for 2026, the U.N. official said.
The U.S. paid $1.3 billion to the UN in FY 2025; our dues were $820 million for regular budgeted activities, and the remainder went to all manner of silly and counterproductive silliness. We have not paid the 2026 assessment, but the entire amount has been appropriated. The real problem seems to be one of the UN shooting itself in the foot and then complaining of the pain.
The United Nations’ financial woes are largely rooted in two problems: a liquidity crisis driven by member states who either are not paying their dues or are paying late, and a financial rule, dating to 1945, that says if the organization fails to fully spend the budget, even if it’s because of lack of payment from member states, it must return the money to the states.
Think about that for a moment. The UN makes a budget; a particular program is not executed, so the entire program’s budget must be rebated, even though the money was never collected.
Guterres said a rule that the UN must return unspent money on particular programmes to members if it could not implement a budget created a “double blow” in which it was “expected to give back cash that does not exist”.
I’m open to correction on this issue, but I’ve read at least eight sources, and they all “seem” to say the same thing. The implication is that nations could be rebated even without paying dues.
I think the real bone of contention, and the real reason that virtually all articles harp on the U.S. not paying up when we have only failed to pay for the current fiscal year because those funds have yet to be appropriated by Congress, it because President Trump has decided to cease paying to the worst UN programs and actively killed a UN carbon tax scheme that would have given UN bureaucrats a giant slush fund.
BACKGROUND:
Trump Pulling US Out of UNESCO Over ‘Pro-China, Pro-Palestine’ Slant – RedState
UN’s Failed Shipping Emissions Scheme: A Case of Taxation Without Representation – RedState
Trump, Rubio Yank Support From 66 International Organizations That ‘No Longer Serve American Interests’ – RedState
Our exit from the World Health Organization, which served as a Chinese Fifth Column aimed at Western economies and societies during the COVID “pandemic” (see Thanks for the Memories — Trump Officially Kicks World Health Organization to the Curb – RedState), and from the climate change religion (see Report: Trump Admin to Mostly Pass on UN Climate Summit – RedState) weakened the ability of a faceless international bureaucracy with communist economic philosophy and fascistic methods to further encroach on our sovereignty.
Personally, I’d prefer that Congress just pull the plug on the whole mess. I see no reason why we should contribute about a quarter of all funds used by the UN when it is relentlessly hostile to the West and to freedom.
BACKGROUND:
Is It Time for America to Leave the United Nations? – RedState
Who Really Needs the United Nations Anyway? – RedState
I think smaller ad hoc groups of nations with the same motives and intentions, working in concert, offer a greater chance for success than any UN program. I think President Trump’s “Board of Peace,” with an exclusive, inviation-only membership (see THE ESSEX FILES: Trump’s Board of Peace Is a Bet on American Leadership – RedState) working under one leader has a greater chance for success than a mob of Third World kleptocracies grifting off UN money while reviling the West—that would be the people donating money—as “colonialists” and hurling invective a Israel for everything from boils on the ass to crop failure.
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