US President Donald Trump has been vocal about his goal of “America First,” which many around the world have interpreted as evidence of his campaign to dismantle the post-war international architecture and replace it with new institutions dominated by him. However, Trump, powerful as he is, is certainly not the sole cause of the collapse of the world order, but he is its clearest symptom, a leader who says without reservation what others have tried to hide, that the era of universal rules is over.
In this context, Trump seems to have no use for the United Nations, which, according to the Charter signed on June 26, 1945, has six main organs, and America is the only one left in the Security Council, where it has permanent member status and veto power, along with China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. They have left the Human Rights Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Program (WFP), UNESCO, UNICEF, and other agencies. In this way, the United States, as the largest donor, has reduced funding for this global body, refusing to meet its mandatory payments to the regular and peacekeeping budgets.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently sent a letter to UN ambassadors warning that the World Organization is in a very difficult financial situation, adding: "The crisis is deepening, threatening the implementation of programs and putting us at risk of financial collapse, and the situation will worsen further in the near future. The important thing now is: Either all member states fulfill their payment obligations in full and on time - or member states must thoroughly revise the UN's financial rules."
Otherwise, the United Nations is financed by the money that each member pays to be part of the UN, the membership fee is determined in the budget according to specific economic criteria, one of which is the member's GDP and average income per citizen. A large part of the UN budget is used to finance peacekeeping missions and security, with the part for missions being separated from the central budget of the Organization, which is used for structural issues and financing other UN agencies. Thus, the budget for peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, Lebanon, Congo, Liberia, Sudan, Ivory Coast and East Timor, according to some sources, is about six billion dollars.
It should be recalled that the United Nations originally tasked Trump with establishing a Peace Committee for the Gaza Strip, but there is no longer any mention that the scope of the committee’s work is limited to the Middle East conflict, but has a broader scope. With such a committee, the US president is not only unilaterally expanding the narrowly defined mandate of the UN, but is also taking steps that could undermine the UN and the international order based on the UN Charter in the long term. This is precisely what is causing concern among the leaders of many countries, who have rejected the proposal to join the Peace Committee.
At the Davos Economic Forum, Trump tried to allay such fears by saying: “When this body (meaning the Peace Council; op. aut) is fully formed, we can do almost anything we want. And we will do it in cooperation with the United Nations”. Two days earlier, in Washington, he had admitted to reporters, almost regretfully, that the Peace Council could potentially replace the UN at some point. However, he described this more as a possible outcome than a goal: “I am a big fan of the potential of the UN, but that organization has never reached its full potential”.
The American president can think whatever he wants about the United Nations, but many relevant analysts believe that the world would look very different without the World Organization. The fact is that over the past 80 years, despite the fact that some important Security Council resolutions have not been fully implemented, the United Nations has made a huge contribution to mediating between warring parties and, with its peacekeeping forces, at times, supervised the implementation of peace agreements. The disappearance of this international organization would mean the loss of a key forum for diplomacy, humanitarian aid and development, which would, among other things, lead to less assistance for poor and vulnerable groups in all meridians.
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