Trump took this time in the world body began to take shape this week with the selection of Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik from New York for the US ambassador to the United Nations.
Stefanik, the fourth-ranking member of the House of Representatives, called last month for a “complete reassessment” of US funding for the United Nations and called for it to stop supporting the agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA. President Joe Biden paused the funding after UNRWA fired several staff in Gaza suspected of involvement in the October 7, 2023 attack led by Hamas.
Here’s a look at what Trump 2.0 means for global organizations:
A theater ‘for the conservative agenda
Speculation about Trump’s future policy has become a parlor game among Washington and others, and reading the signals on issues of importance to the UN is not easy.
For example, Trump once called climate change a hoax and supports the fossil fuel industry but has supported Elon Musk who cares about the environment. His first administration funded a breakneck effort to find a COVID-19 vaccine, but he has allied himself with anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group think tank. Gowan expects that Trump will not see the world body “as a place for serious political business transactions, but will exploit it as a theater to pursue a conservative global social agenda.”
There are hints from the first season. Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate accord and is likely to do so again after President Joe Biden rejoins.
Trump has also called for the US to leave cultural and educational bodies UNESCO and the UN-backed Human Rights Council, claiming it is biased against Israel. Biden returned to two before recently choosing not to seek a second consecutive term on the council.
Trump cuts funding to UN human rights agency for reproductive health services, claims it funds abortions. UNFPA says it does not take a position on abortion rights, and the US rejoins it.
He had no interest in multilateralism – countries working together to solve global challenges – in his first term. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it the “foundational pillar” of the United Nations.
A new Cold War world?
The world is a different place than when Trump said “America First” when he took office in 2017: Wars have broken out in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is growing, and so is fear of Iran’s rapidly advancing atomic program.
The UN Security Council – which is deeply divided between veto-wielding permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – has made no progress in resolving the issue. Respect for international law in war zones and hot spots around the world is broken.
“It’s really going back to the Cold War era,” said John Bolton, a former national security adviser in the Trump White House.
He said that Russia and China are “flying caps” for countries like Iran, which is causing instability in the Middle East, and North Korea, which is helping Russia in its war in Ukraine. There is no possibility of a deal on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or resolving conflicts involving Russia or China at the council, he said.
Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, expects Stefanik to have a “difficult time” because of some of the issues facing the Security Council.
“What was pretty sleepy during Trump’s first term won’t be sleepy in Trump’s second term,” he said.
The Security Council has been impotent in Ukraine since the February 2022 Russian invasion due to Russia’s veto power. And it failed to pass a resolution with teeth demanding a cease-fire in Gaza because of US support for Israel.
The Crisis Group’s Gowan said Republicans in Congress are “furious” about UN criticism of Israel’s policy in Gaza and he expects them to urge Trump to “impose severe budget cuts at the UN, and he will do it to satisfy the base.”
Possible impact on the work of the UN
The daily aid work of global institutions also faces uncertainty.
In Geneva, home to many UN organizations focused on issues such as human rights, migration, telecommunications and weather, some diplomats advised caution and said Trump had largely kept humanitarian aid funds in his first term.
Trade is a different matter. Trump bypassed World Trade Organization rules, imposing tariffs on steel and other goods from allies and rivals. Making new threats, such as imposing a 60% tariff on goods from China, could disrupt global trade.
Other ideological ideas can wait, although the international architecture has some protection and built momentum.
In a veiled reference to Trump’s victory at the UN climate conference in Azerbaijan, Guterres said “the clean energy revolution is here. No group, no business, no government can stop it.”
Allison Chatrchyan, director of the AI-Climate Institute at Cornell University, said that global progress to address climate change “has been slow” due to the Paris agreement and the UN convention on climate change, but Trump’s election “will definitely create a sonic wave.” through the system.”
“It is very possible that President Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement – but according to the rules of the agreement, this can only take effect after four years,” Chatrchyan, who attended the COP29 climate summit, wrote in an email. “The leadership of the United States, which is so badly needed, will be lost.”
During COVID-19, when millions of people around the world were sick and dying, Trump criticized the World Health Organization and suspended its funding.
Trump’s second term will not necessarily be the same as his first, said Gian Luca Burci, a former WHO legal adviser. “It might be more extreme, but it might be more strategic because Trump has learned a system that he didn’t understand in the first place.”
If the US leaves the WHO, “opens the whole Pandora’s box, – by eliminating the funding agency and the necessary technical expertise – said Burci, visiting professor of international law at the Geneva Graduate Institute. for many reasons.”
But both Gowan and Bolton agree that there is one UN event that Trump will not miss: the annual meeting of world leaders at the General Assembly, where he has been in the global spotlight.
