U.S. diplomats say they have delivered the deepest budget cuts in the United Nations' history, trimming hundreds of millions of dollars from the global body's operations as part of President Donald Trump's push to overhaul what he has long criticized as an inefficient and bloated international organization, the New York Post reported on Sunday.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz and U.S. Ambassador for Management and Reform Jeffrey Bartos told the Post that they helped secure a $570 million reduction in the U.N.'s 2026 budget — a move that would lower the U.S. share of payments by $126 million.
"The U.N. has agreed to the first real budget cuts — actual real cuts — for the first time in modern history, pretty much since the founding of the organization," Waltz said. "They've never seen anything like it."
The reductions amount to a 15.2% decrease from the previous year's budget and come amid a broader Trump administration effort to pressure international institutions to scale back spending, reduce bureaucracy, and focus on core missions such as conflict prevention and humanitarian response.
According to U.S. officials, the cuts include a $110 million reduction in funding for the U.N. Secretariat, which manages the organization's daily operations, a $160 million decrease for field missions, and a $300 million across-the-board trimming of what the administration described as a "bloated" budget.
Waltz, a former national security adviser to Trump and former Republican congressman, said the changes will make the U.N. "smaller, less duplicative, more efficient, and cut the fat."
The budget reductions also build on the elimination of 2,900 U.N. bureaucratic positions, which U.S. officials say further reduced overhead costs across the organization.
Because the U.S. contributes 22% of the U.N.'s annual budget, the savings to American taxpayers would total the $126 million, according to the ambassadors.
Bartos said the effort reflects Trump's directive to force meaningful reform at the world body rather than symbolic adjustments.
"All ties back to the president's vision and his charge to all of us to get the reform, get the U.N. back to basics, and to get it fit for purpose," Bartos said.
The U.S. diplomats highlighted what they described as years of unchecked spending since the U.N.'s founding in 1945, pointing to billions of dollars devoted to conferences, compensation programs, and pension obligations.
"The U.N. spent $340 million in 2024 on conferences and meetings, which is a shocking number," Bartos said.
He added that the U.N.'s compensation system consumes $16 billion of the organization's estimated $64 billion global budget, including $2.1 billion annually for its pension plan.
"It's a traditional defined benefit plan which, you know, was all over the world in 1950," Bartos said. "But it's very hard to find one today outside of the U.N."
Waltz and Bartos said reforming the U.N.'s compensation and pension systems is now a top priority, arguing that current structures fail basic cost-benefit standards.
"What's common sense, and what's not common sense?" Bartos said. "The compensation system for the U.N. fails the common-sense test."
Despite the sweeping cuts, both ambassadors rejected calls from some conservatives for the U.S. to withdraw from the U.N. entirely, arguing that the organization still plays a critical diplomatic role.
"There needs to be one place in the world where everyone can talk," Waltz said. "The president is a president of peace, puts diplomacy first. We want that one place in the world to be in the United States, not in Brussels or Beijing."
Waltz emphasized that the reforms are consistent with Trump's America First agenda, particularly the demand for greater burden-sharing among member nations.
"There are a number of conflicts or humanitarian crises," he said. "We don't want to deal with that all ourselves. And we want the U.N. to step in when we need them to."
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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