Last year, the United Nations had a $200 million cash shortfall, according to The Economist, which added, “Internal modelling suggests that the year-end cash deficit will, without cuts, probably blow out to $1.1bn, leaving the UN without money to pay salaries and suppliers by September.”

In 2024, approximately $760 million was lost due to unpaid dues; both the United States and China contribute roughly 20% each to the UN’s annual budget. The United States contributes $2.3 billion annually.

“Article 19 of the UN charter says that a country that skips two years’ worth of payments will lose its vote in the General Assembly (but not its veto on the Security Council, if it has one),” The Economist reported. “America’s total arrears are about $3bn, still shy of its $4.5bn two-year limit. If Mr. Trump does not pony up, America will fall foul of the rules in next year’s budget and have its vote stripped in 2027.”

In 2022, the countries that most frequently voted in alignment with the United States at the United Nations were, in order: Israel, Canada, the United Kingdom, Liberia, Hungary, Australia, Micronesia, Czechia, and the Marshall Islands. Conversely, the nations least aligned with the U.S. were Syria, Nicaragua, Iran, North Korea, China, Cuba, Belarus, Algeria, Bolivia, and Russia.

In 2021, the top countries voting with the U.S. included Israel, Canada, Micronesia, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Marshall Islands, the Czech Republic, France, Estonia, and Hungary, the report said.

Brett Schaefer told the American Enterprise Institute, “If this is an organization that has no value whatsoever to our national interests, we need to get out of it and stop funding it because it’s a waste of our time and a waste of our resources.” 

He added:

This is an organization that Donald Trump had stopped providing funding to because this was an organization that was extraordinarily compromised. It was promoting extremism, celebrating terrorism through its school books and school materials. It was allowing Hamas members to join it as an organization, as employees of the organization. It allowed Hamas, without complaint, to put tunnels and military facilities in close proximity to their schools and their hospitals so that they would be protected by the presence of UNRWA and UN facilities