UN says US has legal obligation to pay dues after Trump pulls from 66 international bodies

The United Nations asserted Thursday that the United States remains legally bound to pay its dues to U.N. agencies after President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending American support for 66 international groups, agencies and commissions, including 31 U.N.-related bodies. Secretary-General António Guterres said he regretted the decision. “Assessed contributions to the United Nations regular budget and peacekeeping budget, as approved by the General Assembly, are a legal obligation under the UN Charter for all Member States, including the United States,” Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for Guterres, said in a statement.

The order marks the broadest single U.S. pullback from multilateral institutions since Trump returned to office, threatening the funding stability of agencies that provide health, climate, migration and humanitarian services to hundreds of millions of people — and raising questions about U.S. standing in organizations it helped establish after World War II.

The United Nations pushed back Thursday against President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend American participation in 66 international bodies, asserting that U.S. financial contributions remain a binding legal obligation under the U.N. Charter regardless of the withdrawal.

“The charter is not à la carte,” Stéphane Dujarric, a spokesperson for Secretary-General António Guterres, told reporters. “We’re not going to renegotiate the charter.”

What Trump’s order covers

Following a yearlong review, Trump signed an executive order suspending American support for 66 international groups, agencies and commissions — 31 of them U.N.-related. The targets include agencies and advisory panels focused on climate, labor and migration that the Trump administration has characterized as promoting diversity and “woke” initiatives, according to the Associated Press.

The administration had previously suspended support for the World Health Organization, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO. Wednesday’s order extends those withdrawals across a far wider field.

Among the agencies newly affected is the U.N. Population Fund, which provides sexual and reproductive health services worldwide and has long drawn Republican opposition. Trump cut its funding during his first term as well.

Climate treaty withdrawal

The order also covers the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC — the 1992 treaty signed by 198 countries that provides the legal foundation for international climate negotiations, including the Paris Agreement. Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement shortly after returning to the White House.

Simon Stiell, the UNFCCC executive secretary, warned the U.S. that pulling back would harm “the US economy, jobs and living standards, as wildfires, floods, mega-storms and droughts get rapidly worse.”

“The doors remain open for the U.S. to reenter in the future, as it has in the past with the Paris Agreement,” Stiell said in a statement.

U.S. funding obligations and arrears

Under the U.N. Charter, the United States — as the world’s largest economy — is assessed to pay 22% of the U.N.’s regular operating budget and 25% of its peacekeeping budget. U.N. officials said the U.S. did not pay its annual contributions to the regular budget in 2025. Under U.N. rules, a member in arrears for two full years loses its vote in the General Assembly.

All four other veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council — China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom — have paid their assessed contributions in full. China, assessed at 20%, paid over $685 million.

Guterres said he regretted the decision and indicated U.N. entities will continue their work. “The United Nations has a responsibility to deliver for those who depend on us,” Dujarric said.

No formal U.S. notification to the U.N.

The scale and speed of the announcement caught senior U.N. officials off guard. Diplomats said they learned of the withdrawal through news reports and White House social media posts, according to the AP. As of Thursday, the Trump administration had sent no formal communication outlining the decision to the world body.

Many U.N. officials declined to comment on the order’s impact on their specific agencies, citing the absence of any official U.S. government notification.

The withdrawal came despite months of diplomatic maneuvering. U.N. officials, including Guterres, had worked to persuade Trump not to fully abandon the institution the U.S. helped found after World War II. Those efforts yielded a $2 billion U.S. humanitarian assistance agreement announced last month. But America’s retreat had already led France and the United Kingdom to reevaluate their own humanitarian funding commitments, with many shifting that money toward military spending.