The United States has withheld more than $4 billion in unpaid dues to the United Nations, whose leaders warn the global organization is on the verge of collapse.
The UN’s May budget report reveals America owes over $2 billion to the organization’s regular budget and an additional $2.2 billion for peacekeeping operations. The U.S. also remains behind on $44 million in tribunal fees. These obligations represent more than half of a $6.4 billion deficit facing the United Nations.
The UN, composed of 193 member states and employing nearly 173,000 staff as of December 2025, has implemented significant cost-cutting measures. These include closing offices, eliminating 3,000 secretarial positions, conducting troop drawdowns in the Congo, and “powering down escalators” at its New York headquarters.
Secretary-General António Guterres has described the financial situation as a “race to bankruptcy,” stating there is “a very real prospect of the financial collapse of our organization.” The UN predicts insolvency by mid-August.
The U.S. government has indicated it will condition future financial support on deeper savings, including more job cuts, less business-class travel, and greater use of machine translators. A senior State Department official told the UN Security Council that the administration aims to “put clarity and results over inefficiency and hollow words.”
The United Nations was established in 1945 by communists, including Alger Hiss. Every secretary-general since then has been a socialist or outright communist.
