Earthquake at the UN: 31 agencies remain without the US after Trump's decision

Two days ago, Donald Trump triggered the largest rupture of the United States from the global institutional architecture since World War II, in a political move that directly shakes the UN system and the international networks built in recent decades.

Through a presidential memorandum signed on January 7, 2026, the leader in the White House orders the immediate withdrawal of the US from dozens of international bodies, on the grounds that they are "contrary to the interests of the United States", the document being based on a report by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, carried out following a previous executive order. The message is clear: The Trump administration no longer accepts multilateral structures that it considers captive to ideological, bureaucratic or climate agendas that escape American national control.

On the UN front, the blow is frontal and unprecedented. The US is ending its participation and funding for a massive list that includes 31 key agencies, programs and bodies of the United Nations, such as the Department of Economic and Social Affairs - the global public policy pillar of the UN, as well as the entire regional arm of the Economic and Social Council - the economic commissions for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, West Asia. The withdrawal also targets the International Law Commission - the central mechanism in the development of global legal norms, the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, but also the International Trade Centre, the joint UN-WTO body for global trade. The list continues with politically and symbolically sensitive offices: the UN Special Adviser for Africa, the special representatives of the Secretary-General for children in armed conflict, for sexual violence in conflict and for violence against children. The US president is also withdrawing the US from central instruments of post-conflict reconstruction, such as the Peacebuilding Commission and the Peacebuilding Fund, as well as the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent - a platform associated with global debates on race and colonialism. The US is also leaving the UN Alliance of Civilizations - the UN program for intercultural dialogue, as well as the organization's climate and environmental mechanisms: the UN program to reduce emissions from deforestation, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN Energy, UN Water and UN Oceans.

The US withdrawal is extended, through the memorandum signed by Donald Trump and published on the White House website, to essential social and demographic areas: UN Women, UN Population Fund, UN Habitat, UN Institute for Training and Research, UN Democracy Fund, UN University, as well as the internal coordination structures of the UN system, including the Chief Executives Board and Staff College. In effect, the US is detaching itself from the UN's normative, climate, social, educational and institutional core, in a move that radically transforms the balance of power within the organisation.

In parallel, Trump is also severing ties with a vast ecosystem of international bodies that are not formally part of the UN, but that influence global policies in energy, climate, environment, migration, democracy, justice, cybersecurity and development. These include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity, the scientific pillars of the global climate agenda, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the International Solar Alliance and international policy networks for renewable energy. The US is also withdrawing from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Secretariat of the Regional Environment Programme for the Pacific, as well as from bodies dedicated to natural resources, mining, tropical forests and biodiversity.

The strike also targets key structures in the sphere of democracy and the rule of law, such as the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law and the Freedom Online Coalition, as well as global forums for migration, development and the fight against terrorism. Collaborations with sensitive European and transatlantic bodies, such as the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats and the Regional Cooperation Council, are also being abandoned.

Donald Trump's decision can be read in the context of his direct fight against what the American president has often called institutionalized globalism. The memorandum calls on all federal agencies to implement the withdrawals "as soon as possible", and for UN structures, this means the cessation of participation and funding within the limits of the law. The Trump administration announces that the evaluation continues, leaving open the possibility of additional withdrawals.

In geopolitical terms, the document marks a hard reset of the US position: America is withdrawing from the center of multilateral global order and brutally claims its decision-making sovereignty, at the cost of a major destabilization of the international system built over the last 80 years.