The US Is Staying in Most International Organizations, but Slashing Support

In February last year, the White House issued an Executive Order for a State Department review of international organizations, conventions, and treaties to which the United States was a party, in order to exit those it considered “contrary to the interests of the United States.” On January 7, a Presidential memo announced the review had concluded with a decision to exit from 66 entities. The good news is that the review leaves US official involvement in most major international organizations intact (for now). The bad news is that US financial support for those organizations is still critically low.

The list of entities the US is quitting includes the UN Conference on Trade and Development and UN Women through the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children and the International Cotton Advisory Committee. But the US is still officially committed to upholding nearly every one of about 200 multilateral treaties it was meant to be abiding by before January 7, with the potential exception of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. And it is worth comparing the 66 listed entities to proposals for a considerably wider US disengagement, or placing it in the context of the estimated 45,000 international organizations worldwide (although the US government is a member of only a fraction of that number). Furthermore, the list of 66 entities includes a number that might be better viewed as offices than organizations—including parts of the UN Economic and Social Council and offices of special representatives. And for all it contains institutions that do vital work, they are mostly at the smaller end of the spectrum.

Indeed, about two-thirds of the entities from which the administration plans to withdraw do not appear in a comprehensive list of international organizations funded by the US in 2023. It may be that the United States did fund them, but through general contributions to a parent organization (this will apply to support for many of the UN entities, which are paid for through the regular UN-assessed budget). Some other entities may have been created after 2023 or not have required funding in that year (this applies to UN University, for example).

But we can say that of the 160 international organizations reported in the 2023 funding report, the US has now withdrawn from 22 (including those on the January 7 list, WHO and UNESCO). Those 22 organizations accounted for about $647 million, or 4 percent of reported 2023 US international organization spending. Take out the WHO and UNESCO, and that falls to below 1 percent.

Table 1. US withdrawal from international organizations it funded in 2023

Source: White House Memo and State Department. Note the White House also promised to withhold the US proportionate share of the total annual amount of UN Regular Budget funding for the UN Human Rights Commissioner, although the effect will be difficult to notice in what has been considerably more significant backsliding on US-assessed contributions to the UN.

Again, many of the 66 entities do vital work—mostly small does not mean mostly insignificant. And, regardless, there is much more that can be done to weaken international organizations and agreements than just quitting them. You can ignore or disrupt them from within, or simply defund them. This administration has followed both tracks—widely flouting WTO rules in trade policy (as did the Biden administration), and halting finance for numerous UN peacekeeping operations and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, for example.

Regarding funding, the overall picture for US funding of international organizations is hard to fully assess post-2023 because the State Department has not updated its reporting. Available budget documents for later years largely report on predictable, assessed contributions and dues—not the voluntary payments that support projectized work, which vary substantially from year to year in volumes, sources, and recipients, and are considerably larger in aggregate. But the budget reports can tell you about this core funding, at least.

Looking at the International Affairs and Defense Budget Justifications, 74 of the 160 organizations listed in the FY2023 international contributions report are identified as receiving core US funding in FY2024. In contrast, at the time the Justifications were released in May, the administration envisioned funding only 31 in FY 2025—although the State Department Justification reported the potential for additional payments later in the fiscal year, which did indeed occur for some organizations.

For FY2026, the administration sought core funding from Congress for just 25 organizations (with more to be added, subject to the larger review of international organizations). And the administration’s FY2026 budget proposed curbing this core funding from $4 billion in FY2024 to just $1 billion. 

Table 2. US itemized budgeting for international organizations

Source: Defense, State and Treasury Congressional Budget Justifications. Excludes Multilateral Development Banks

Note again: these are not total payments forecast or made to international organizations by the US government; the figures largely cover membership dues and “assessed contributions.” But the 2026 State Department justification proposed zeroing out the International Organizations and Programs account used to support about $500 million in voluntary payments in FY2024. And a partial look at total obligations from all US government accounts that includes voluntary payments and support for projects suggests large reductions. Taking the 10 largest international organization recipients of US finance excluding NATO in 2023, USAspending reports obligations to these recipients fell from a total of around $11.1 billion in fiscal year 2023 to $4.3 billion in fiscal year 2025.

The US remains a member of the international community, but it is increasingly delinquent on its contributions—it still wants to play, but won’t pay. Happily, Congress looks set to agree on a budget that preserves considerably more targeted funding for international organizations than the administration had requested (in the core and international organizations budgets of the State Department, $1.7 billion in funding compared to an administration request of $0.3 billion and an FY2024 budget of $2 billion). Now that the considerable majority of international organizations have been deemed aligned with the interests of the United States, hopefully the administration will gratefully expend the extra resources.

Figure 1. Total obligations reported to the largest international organization recipients, 2023 and 2025

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Source: State Department for ranking, USAspending for payments.