Ending the Charade of Wasteful International Organizations

Author: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio

The United States has played a central role in shaping the international order. From the Monroe Doctrine which allowed nations in our region to flourish free from interference outside of our hemisphere, to our pivotal role in the establishment of the United Nations, to serving as the primary security guarantor under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and as the world’s largest humanitarian donor, America’s leadership has been unquestionable. Leadership requires difficult choices, and the ability to recognize when the institutions created to promote peace, prosperity and liberty have become obstacles to those goals. What we term the “international system” is now overrun with hundreds of opaque international organizations, many with overlapping mandates, duplicative actions, ineffective outputs, and poor financial and ethical governance. Even those that once performed useful functions have increasingly become inefficient bureaucracies, platforms for politicized activism or instruments contrary to our nation’s best interests. Not only do these institutions not deliver results, they obstruct action by those who wish to address these problems. The era of writing blank checks to international bureaucracies is over.

This week, in accordance with the findings of Executive Order 14199, President Trump announced our withdrawal from 66 international organizations identified as part of the Trump Administration’s ongoing review of wasteful, ineffective, and harmful international organizations. The Presidential Memorandum targets institutions that are redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity.

It is no longer acceptable to invest the American people’s hard-earned tax dollars in institutions that cannot demonstrate results, accountability or respect for our national interests. It is an abdication of America’s global leadership to continue funding and promoting organizations that obstruct solutions to the problems facing the world today such as affordable energy, economic growth, and national sovereignty. Continued U.S. participation in them only legitimizes their existence and a model that has failed billions around the world.

From the UN Population Fund’s long history of ethical violations including funding coerced abortions; to UN Women’s failure to define what a woman even is; to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change squandering millions of dollars on funding for climate-alarmist, anti-energy investment in the West Bank and Gaza; to the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent espousing openly racist policies in support of global reparations—these organizations boast a consistent record of dysfunction if not outright malice. The American people, our partners and the billions around the world who look to the United States for leadership deserve better. Our continued participation in organizations that do not reflect our values or serve our interests would be an abandonment of our national duty.

The organizations that we have chosen to withdraw from have been selected after a lengthy review of their purpose, actions, efficiency, effectiveness, necessity, and most importantly, their ability to help us achieve U.S. national interests. Those we are withdrawing from are by no means the only offenders. Our review of United States participation in international organizations remains ongoing.

This does not mean America is turning its back on the world. We are simply rejecting an outdated model of multilateralism- one that treats the American taxpayer as the world’s underwriter for a sprawling architecture of global governance.

The Trump Administration is demanding real results from the institutions we fund and participate in, and we stand ready to lead a campaign for reform. President Trump has been clear, including through this week’s Presidential Memorandum that he will not allow international organizations to undermine the United States and limit our national sovereignty, our energy independence, our economic prosperity, our democracy, and our constitutional freedoms. He will not allow the United States to continue funding a failed model that refuses or proves impossible to reform. This week’s Presidential Memorandum demonstrated that America is no longer accepting the broken status quo, that this nation is prepared to lead, as it always has, and that sometimes true leadership means knowing when to walk away.

Marco Rubio was sworn in as the 72nd Secretary of State on January 21, 2025. The Secretary is creating a Department of State that puts America First.