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[post_content] => 2025 was a stress test for multilateralism. Engagement narrowed, budgets shrank and cooperation became more conditional. Even so, moments of real progress gave hope – reminders that the system still delivers when it matters most.
Here are nine moments from a memorable year.
1. Foreign Assistance Froze and USAID Ended.
Days into President Trump’s second term, U.S. foreign assistance was abruptly halted. While the fate of programs hung somewhere between speedy 90-day reviews and more comprehensive (still unreleased) multilateral aid reviews, USAID was busy shuttering its doors after 64 years at the forefront of lifesaving work. Funding pipelines dried up overnight, leaving partners and the people they serve in jeopardy.
A wave of executive actions soon followed. Global health and development programs were paused or cut. The Global Gag Rule returned. Even PEPFAR, long treated as politically sacrosanct, was dragged into domestic culture battles. The signal was clear: traditional development was out; transactional engagement was in.
2. Congress Cut the Foreign Affairs Budget.
If the Administration set the tone, Congress delivered the blow. A $9 billion rescissions package slashed U.S. funding for the UN and international organizations, zeroing out support for WHO and driving U.S. peacekeeping arrears past the $1.5 billion mark.
Proposals to cut peacekeeping by more than half and eliminate voluntary funding for agencies like the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) deepened the crisis. By late summer, a legally dubious round of pocket rescissions sought to claw back another $1 billion before the fiscal year ended.
The cuts left the UN cash-strapped, forcing plans for an austere 2026 budget and major staffing cuts. By year’s end, the 80th UN General Assembly convened under a cloud of fiscal crisis, raising fundamental questions about America’s role in the system it heavily supports – and relies on.
3. New Leadership Took the Helm of U.S. Foreign Policy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz stepped into office at a moment of retrenchment and rising global risk. Rubio brought a long-standing focus on China, migration and the Western Hemisphere into the role. Former Green Beret Waltz arrived with a security lens shaped by an emphasis on deterrence and burden-sharing.
Together, they’re reinforcing a results-driven approach to engagement – demanding more bottom-line outputs from institutions like the UN while remaining more than eager to use them when scale and legitimacy matter. Gaza and Haiti were early tests of that balance.
4. The UN Turned 80 – and Cut Budgets, Not Cake.
This year’s UN General Assembly felt more like triage than jubilation. Instead of marking the milestone with ceremony, Secretary-General António Guterres used the moment to brief Member States on UN80 – an ambitious reform effort launched earlier in the year to make the organization leaner and more effective.
Reform includes historic cuts to the core budget – 15 percent (about $577 million) in FY26 – and eliminates one in five posts through back-office consolidation. Separately, major peacekeeping troop drawdowns are already underway. Whether these reforms succeed hinges on political will.
As UN80 moves from blueprint to execution, the United States – long an advocate and architect of reform – will determine whether this moment delivers results or slips away.
5. Hostages were Released as Hope for Resolution – and Aid – Reached Gaza.
In November, Washington made one of the year’s most consequential diplomatic breakthroughs. Ending months of paralysis over the Israel-Hamas war, the UN Security Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution on Gaza. The measure passed 13-0, with Russia and China abstaining. This followed the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas and a fragile pause in fighting – briefly opening space for diplomacy to reassert itself.
The resolution embedded President Trump’s 20-point plan in a UN framework. It called for the resumption of humanitarian aid, authorizes a temporary international governing authority to oversee reconstruction and approves a multinational stabilization force as Israeli forces withdraw. The text also cautiously points toward a longer-term political horizon beyond the immediate crisis.
6. Syria’s Post-Assad Future Now Looks to International Support.
Syria’s political map shifted in 2025, opening a narrow but vital window. One year after Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, a fragile transitional government under President Ahmad al-Sharaa – who delivered an historic speech to the UN General Assembly before visiting the White House – forced Washington to reassess whether sanctions designed for a fallen regime risked prolonging instability.
Congress is set to settle the question by repealing Caesar Act sanctions, clearing space for engagement and signaling that isolation risked ceding Syria to Iran and Russia. The UN emerged as the channel for cautious rebuilding, scaling aid, clearing landmines and laying early groundwork for reconstruction oversight as refugees weighed return.
Nevertheless, with costs exceeding $200 billion, the risks remain high.
7. Haiti Became a Proving Ground for a New Security Model.
As gang violence spiraled and state authority collapsed, Washington pushed a Security Council resolution to overhaul the international response to violence in Haiti, replacing a faltering mission with a UN-authorized Gang Suppression Force.
For the U.S., instability in Haiti is not a distant humanitarian crisis but an immediate security concern, with migration pressure and regional security lending added urgency to the effort.
8. Sudan Reached its Nadir
As attention fixed on Gaza and Ukraine, Sudan slipped into the world’s worst hunger crisis. Famine was declared across multiple regions, millions were displaced and humanitarian access collapsed amid fighting between rival generals. With funding drying up and donor focus drifting, the gap between needs and capacity widened daily.
For Washington, the crisis exposed the limits of restraint. Long Sudan’s largest humanitarian donor, the United States scaled back contributions amid a broader foreign-aid freeze, pairing diplomatic statements with little appetite for deeper engagement.
Sudan became one of 2025’s darkest lessons: without sustained political will and adequate funding, even the UN’s largest humanitarian machinery cannot keep pace.
9. “America First” was Codified.
December’s National Security Strategy formalized what 2025 had already revealed in practice.
The document rejected broad-based engagement in favor of a narrower definition of U.S. national interest. Prevention and long-term institution-building gave way to demands for immediate results tied directly to U.S. priorities. Agencies focused on migration management, sanctions enforcement, counter-narcotics and security cooperation rose in prominence, while those centered on human rights, development and governance receded.
Yet the NSS stopped short of rejecting multilateralism. In fact, Gaza and Haiti offered proof of the strategy’s internal tension: even as funding contracted and rhetoric hardened, Washington still turned to the UN when legitimacy and risk-sharing were indispensable.
Looking Ahead to 2026: An Inflection Point More Than a Reset
If 2025 marked a contraction in U.S.-UN relations, 2026 will test whether the relationship stabilizes or hardens.
New security missions move from mandate to reality, budget politics remain volatile and the United States will host the G20 even as it questions multilateralism. Even the World Cup is already taking on diplomatic weight, with visa restrictions and domestic tensions threatening to turn a global celebration into a political flashpoint.
Policy signals point toward a narrower, more transactional approach. Culture wars may further constrain cooperation, while Washington’s influence over the upcoming Secretary-General election is likely to favor managerial restraint over aspirational vision.
Operationally, 2026 will be unforgiving. Gaza and Haiti will test whether UN-authorized, burden-sharing security models can deliver results with U.S. financing and diplomacy rather than troops. Peacekeeping faces the same strain: doing less without leaving dangerous vacuums behind.
There will be no return to the multilateralism of the past.
The question is whether a leaner U.S.-UN relationship can still deliver when stakes are highest.
[post_title] => The U.S.-UN Relationship in 2025: 9 Memorable Moments
[post_excerpt] => 2025 was a defining year for multilateralism. As America First narrowed U.S. engagement and put the brakes on foreign assistance, nine moments stood out that shaped U.S.-UN relations heading into 2026.
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[post_date] => 2025-12-12 22:16:11
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[post_content] => The first Nor’easter of the season knocked out power shortly after my interview with Ko Barrett began. On a glitching screen beside a New Hampshire fireplace, I pleaded with my phone for a hotspot while Barrett – the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization and the first American in its leadership – smiled. “I miss fireplaces,” she said disarmingly. “At home on my farm in North Carolina, we heat with a woodstove.”
I liked her instantly.
[caption id="attachment_16365" align="alignright" width="205"]
Ko Barrett, Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization[/caption]
There I was, half-frozen and half-offline, while the woman responsible for safeguarding the planet’s weather data was reassuring me over a video call. It felt oddly appropriate.
Barrett’s résumé stretches across the modern climate world: two decades at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), years representing the U.S. in international climate negotiations, vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the body whose work earned her and her colleagues a Nobel Peace Prize – and a fierce champion for women as she shattered glass ceilings on the climb. Now she oversees the global architecture of weather prediction – a system billions rely on every day. Barrett is a powerhouse.
So is that system – the World Meteorological Organization.
Most Americans have never heard of it. Yet WMO data helps determine if planes get off the ground and whether you reach for a raincoat on a Tuesday morning. “Reliable forecasts don’t happen by accident,” Barrett told me. “No country can know the world’s weather on their own.”
That’s where the value of WMO is unmatched – and U.S. collaboration makes all the difference.
“Reliable forecasts don’t happen by accident... No country can know the world’s weather on their own.”
[caption id="attachment_16361" align="aligncenter" width="1536"]
Views from the top of Mount Washington (photo credit: Mount Washington Observatory)[/caption]
From the World to Mount Washington
To understand just how intertwined America’s weather system is with the rest of the world, the highest peak in New England offers a vivid illustration. Atop the Mount Washington Observatory – where the weather is so feral that it once clocked the world’s fastest wind speed, a brutal 231 mph – a small team of scientists produces the forecast that generations of locals, hikers and search-and-rescue crews have relied on.
“When anyone heads into the White Mountains, they start with our data,” Drew Bush, PhD, the Observatory’s executive director, said. “The Forest Service, Fish and Game, the Appalachian Mountain Club – they all depend on it.”
“On the worst days,” he added, “they’re calling us by the minute asking for specifics.”
Their data is both hyperlocal and sweeping. It shapes maritime forecasts, guides aviation experts and hosted research to improve how the U.S military defrosts their aircraft. And when conditions allow, they even turn to studying cosmic rays from space.
From their supercomputers and laboratories, the Observatory’s readings go into NOAA’s systems, then on to WMO’s global exchange. One gust at the peak becomes part of the world’s hurricane models, flood maps and aviation alerts. “What we do locally matters to people nationally and internationally,” Bush said. “It’s all connected.”
“What we do locally matters to people nationally and internationally... It’s all connected.”
That’s the point. In fact, part of billions of datapoints. That happens in the Granite State – or any state – really does matter to the rest of the planet.
The entire network – stretching from the American northeast to the rest of the world – exists because nations decided, improbably, that it should.
The Origins of the Improbable
This improbable idea traces back to 1853, when naval officers from ten nations met to compare ship logs. The U.S. delegate marveled that so many navies would gather “not at the cannon’s mouth,” but for the “noble purpose of serving humanity.”
In 1873, meteorologists standardized observations across borders, laying the groundwork for what would become WMO. Even at the height of the Cold War, American and Soviet scientists worked through WMO to build the World Weather Watch, the backbone of modern forecasting. When political leaders weren’t speaking, scientists were.
When political leaders weren’t speaking, scientists were.
Today, WMO oversees the sprawling infrastructure they built. It founded the IPCC. It maintains the world’s official temperature, rainfall, wind and lightning records. It names the hurricanes. (And fun fact: an Australian meteorologist once named storms after politicians he disliked.) It curates the International Cloud Atlas, which may seem quaint until you remember those nimbi can make or break a harvest.
But the machinery behind all this is straining. WMO’s budget has been cut by a third. Weather stations in poorer countries struggle with outdated equipment. Sensors are destroyed in conflict zones. And the extremes Americans now endure – Arizona heat, Texas floods, Florida hurricanes – demand faster, sharper warnings.
"People increasingly experience climate through its extremes,” Barrett told me. “They need early warning. That starts with data.”
"People increasingly experience climate through its extremes... They need early warning. That starts with data.”
Bush put it in even starker terms: “The atmosphere doesn’t care about borders. If one piece of the system weakens, forecasts everywhere get worse.”
The Human Side of Leadership
For all her technical authority, Barrett carries the welcome ease of someone shaped by her native Appalachia. She describes spring as “the smell of a forest floor.” She once briefed world leaders with her dog, Finn, curled beside her. Her mix of precision and humility reminded me that the global weather system rests on very human shoulders – people with woodstoves and outages, farms and families, keeping a planet’s worth of storms at bay.
NASA climatologist Marshall Shepherd said it best: “The weather’s happening all around us… The systems that help us understand it are the scaffolding of modern life – invisible, until they break.”
It’s a perfect metaphor for the UN – and for WMO. Mostly unseen. Absolutely vital. Until it’s gone.
Here in New Hampshire, tending my own stove, I take comfort knowing Barrett is in Geneva tending the global machinery – and that Bush is on the summit sending down the next warning before the wind picks up. Between them, and thousands more, they’ll make sure tomorrow’s forecast arrives right on time. A small miracle of global cooperation to help us navigate the wintry roads ahead.
“The weather’s happening all around us… The systems that help us understand it are the scaffolding of modern life – invisible, until they break.”
[post_title] => A Fireside Chat with the Planet’s Top Weather Watchers: Getting to Know the World Meteorological Organization
[post_excerpt] => From nor’easters to mountaintop observatories, here’s how the UN’s World Meteorological Organization works with U.S. forecasters as an invisible force keeping Americans safer on this winter’s roads.
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[post_content] => On December 4, President Trump released his 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS), laying out an “America First” blueprint for U.S. foreign policy. At just over 30 pages, the document is notably brief and marks a departure from decades of emphasis on multilateralism.
Instead of broad-based engagement, the strategy adopts a narrower definition of U.S. national interest, prioritizing economic leverage and more tightly bounded commitments. At its core, it recalibrates how, where and why the United States engages abroad — with direct implications for alliances, including its relationship with the United Nations.
Here are key takeaways.
1. Narrower View of U.S. Interests
The NSS argues the U.S. should concern itself with other countries only when their actions “directly threaten U.S. interests.” Strategy is framed almost exclusively around sovereignty, border control, economic power and military dominance. International institutions are portrayed as “sovereignty-sapping” and sometimes “anti-American,” with explicit warnings against “globalism” and open-ended global governance.
2. Western Hemisphere Takes Priority
More than any previous NSS, the document recenters U.S. strategy on the Western Hemisphere – a modern “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. Migration, narcotics trafficking and foreign influence “closer to home” drive calls to reallocate resources toward the region, including expanded maritime operations and security cooperation across Latin America and the Caribbean.
At the UN, this could translate into more selective engagement with bodies tied to migration, counternarcotics and maritime security, such as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
3. “Economic Security Is National Security”
The strategy makes little distinction between economic policy and national security, asserting plainly that “economic security is national security.” Reindustrialization, supply chains, critical minerals, energy dominance and capital flows are treated as tools of strategic power. At the UN, agencies able to demonstrate clear links to economic stability or supply-chain resilience may find more traction than those centered on broader governance agendas.
4. Alliances on Transactional Terms
Alliances remain part of U.S. strategy, though the NSS presses allies – particularly in Europe – to assume greater responsibility for their own defense, endorsing a benchmark of five percent of GDP for NATO partners. That logic is likely to extend into UN debates on peacekeeping, with heightened pressure on costs, mandates and effectiveness.
5. Soft Power Is Recast, Not Gone
Foreign aid and soft power are not eliminated, but sharply reframed. The strategy criticizes the so-called “foreign aid complex,” prioritizing investment over assistance and pragmatic cooperation over democracy promotion, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. It signals support for political and economic reforms only when they emerge organically within countries themselves, rather than through external pressure.
What This Means for Multilateralism
Though much of the NSS may sit uneasily alongside broader multilateral ideals, this is nevertheless an opportunity for the UN to remind Americans of its value in interest-based terms: how UN sanctions disrupt illicit finance, how peacekeeping contains instability, how counterterrorism and non-proliferation efforts protect U.S. borders and markets, how early action on disease averts costlier interventions later and how refugee assistance reduces migration pressures at the U.S. border.
The same applies to essential technical agencies like the International Civil Aviation Organization, the World Meteorological Organization and the World Health Organization. They don’t undermine sovereignty – they protect it. Shared standards keep Americans safe while preventing chaos or rival powers from setting the rules. The real choice isn’t cooperation or independence; it’s cooperation or ceding control.
In a strategy defined by self-interest, the UN’s relevance may seem to narrow. In fact, it will become couched less in terms of norm-setting and more about crisis management — brokering ceasefires, preventing escalation and absorbing diplomatic friction so the U.S. doesn’t have to deploy troops.
In this environment, immediate outcomes will matter more than long-term agendas — a reality that will shape how multilateral partners navigate the years ahead.
[post_title] => What the 2025 National Security Strategy Means for Multilateralism
[post_excerpt] => President Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy advances an "America First” approach with major implications for U.S. engagement with the United Nations.
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[post_content] => While 2025 revealed significant challenges in the U.S.-UN relationship, it also underscored just how central the UN remains to advancing U.S. foreign policy priorities.
Time and again, the United States turned to the Security Council – successfully working through the body to press for an international force to confront gang violence in Haiti, renew sanctions on Iran and advance an historic resolution aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
Each initiative now faces its own journey beyond the Council. But how they made it through the chamber offers insight into diplomacy at work – of negotiation, process and compromise.
This is how that process works – from idea to adoption.
1. The Starting Line
It all begins when one or more Council members "take up the pen." In UN parlance, the “penholder” is the delegation responsible for drafting the text. It’s typically a Member State aligned with the resolution’s core objective, though not necessarily the most vocal or visible player on the issue.
The initial work usually starts behind closed doors at a UN mission in New York. There, issue experts work the phones – consulting regional groups, affected countries, key stakeholders and fellow Council delegations.
On high-stakes crises, the first draft can take weeks to shape and extend well beyond the Council’s 15 seats. The goal is simple but demanding: line up enough support – ideally unanimous, at minimum a majority – to act within the Council’s mandate. Early outreach matters, as boad buy-in at the start can prevent major political headaches later.
2. The “Zero Draft”
Next comes what diplomats call a “zero draft.” It’s a working text circulated purely for comment. Shared informally by email or message, it’s reviewed through a mix of written feedback, brief check-ins, hallway conversations and even WhatsApp or Signal messages. Delegations strike language, add caveats and suggest alternatives. The penholder’s team then consolidates those inputs, moving the text closer to a viable draft.
3. Negotiation
Once a draft exists, debate begins – and this is where things can get dicey. That’s because language is everything. A word like “ceasefire,” for example, carries very different weight than “truce.” Sorting out those nuances is the work of careful negotiation.
That negotiation usually happens off the record and off the floor. Formal discussions in the Council’s Consultations Room – just steps from the Chamber – are rare. Often, feedback comes from officials back in national capitals rather than from New York itself. This phase isn’t about speeches. It’s about finding language enough governments can live with, even if no one gets everything they want. (And no one ever gets everything they want.)
4. Going “in Blue”
After several rounds of negotiation, the penholder circulates a final draft. Depending on the stakes, it may also be shared with the wider UN membership to line up co-sponsors.
At that point, the text is assigned a document number and issued “in blue.” Once delivered on paper in blue ink, it now arrives in representatives’ email inboxes – still in blue font. The color is a historical quirk dating back to the 1970s when Security Council photocopiers used blue ink.
When a draft goes in blue, the message is clear: the Council is ready to act. A vote usually follows within 24 hours.
5. The Vote
The vote takes place at a formal, open meeting around the Security Council’s iconic horseshoe table. The Council president – an office that rotates monthly – gavels the session to order. Delegations make final statements outlining their support or reservations. Amendments may also be introduced. Then the president calls for action. A show of hands determines the outcome.
For a resolution to be adopted, at least nine members must vote in favor – and none of the five permanent members (the U.S., China, France, Russia or the United Kingdom) may cast a veto. Permanent members can, however, abstain, allowing a resolution to pass without their explicit support.
Watch proceedings of Security Council meetings live on UN TV.
6. From Blue to Black
The final step is administrative but profoundly consequential. Once adopted, a resolution is translated into the UN’s six official languages and published in black, entering the Security Council’s permanent record. Every draft – passed or not – is numbered and archived.
It's worth noting that those records will soon become much easier to search, offering the public greater insight into how decisions evolve behind closed doors.
Find all Security Council resolutions in their archive.
From conception to adoption, what emerges through the process is diplomacy not as spectacle, but as real craft – built painstakingly and through compromise. It’s rarely tidy, often frustrating and – as 2025 demonstrated – still one of the few ways the international community moves from crisis to collective action.
[post_title] => The Making of a UN Security Council Resolution
[post_excerpt] => What it takes to move a resolution through the UN Security Council offers a look at diplomacy in action – from negotiation to adoption.
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2025 was a defining year for multilateralism. As America First narrowed U.S. engagement and put the brakes on foreign assistance, nine moments stood out that shaped U.S.-UN relations heading into 2026.
From nor’easters to mountaintop observatories, here’s how the UN’s World Meteorological Organization works with U.S. forecasters as an invisible force keeping Americans safer on this winter’s roads.
President Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy advances an "America First” approach with major implications for U.S. engagement with the United Nations.
What it takes to move a resolution through the UN Security Council offers a look at diplomacy in action – from negotiation to adoption.
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