In December 2023, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced the Disengaging Entirely From the United Nations Debacle (DEFUND) Act, which proposes to withdraw the U.S. from the UN and stop all U.S. funding to the organization.
Since then, Republicans have offered several other proposals, both rhetorically and in 2025 budget proposals, to defund the UN.
The U.S. was a key founder of the UN in 1945 and has been a major financial contributor ever since. In 2022, the most recent fiscal year with full data available, the U.S. contributed over $18 billion to the UN, or about a third of the group’s budget.
The funding represents about one-fourth of the $70 billion the U.S. spends annually on foreign aid. In introducing the DEFUND Act, Lee argued that the U.S. has ceded too much power to the UN and that the organization has failed in its mission to maintain world peace.
By supporting the UN, Lee said, “the Biden admin istration continues to fund, indirectly, groups like Hamas through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency— known for its antisemitic indoctrination.”
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides assistance and protection for Palestinian refugees. The UN said it takes “swift action” on neutrality breaches and that the 66 possible cases it has investigated out of the 30,000 total UN staff members “underscores that the absolutely overwhelming majority of UNRWA’s highly dedicated staff adhere to the principles to which they commit when they join the agency.”
The UN said that nine staff members may have been involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and it has fired all nine individuals.
Lee also cited the Trump administration’s decision to halt funding to the United Nations Population Fund over a Chinese government family planning program that forces people to get abortions and sterilizations. The UN agency said it does not support that program.
The Trump administration acknowledged there was no evidence to the contrary but claimed that by working with China’s family planning agency, the UN was tacitly supporting the sterilizations.
No action has been taken on the DEFUND Act since its introduction. But on June 3, the Republican-led House Committee on Appropriations released its foreign operations budget for the 2025 fiscal year, which included measures eliminating funding for the UN’s regular budget. In addition, the committee’s foreign operations budget prohibited funding for the International Court of Justice, the UNRWA, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry against Israel, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Health Organization, a UN agency. The committee approved its 2025 budget on June 12.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), chair of the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, said, “The enacted [budget] legislation … defunded antisemitic, anti-American entities within the United Nations, such as UNRWA, which has, for many years, been a de facto subsidiary of Hamas.”
In contrast, the Senate Committee on Appropriations budget provided $2.9 billion to fully fund U.S. dues to the UN and other international commitments, and it increased funding to recruit and place Americans in entry-level UN jobs. It continues a funding ban on UNRWA that it passed in March 2024 as a one-year ban. Congress halted funding after Israel accused UN staffers of participating in the Oct. 7 attack.
The 2025 fiscal year starts Oct. 1, at which point Congress is supposed to have resolved the differences between the House and Senate budgets and sent a final version to President Joe Biden. But Congress often passes extensions when it can’t come to a consensus. (For instance, the 2024 budget wasn’t finalized until March 2024.)
Rep. Anna Luna (R-Fla.) published a piece in favor of defunding the UN, starting with the United Nations Hu man Rights Council. “It has no trouble electing member nations like China, Cuba, Venezuela and Pakistan to opine on human rights, despite the fact these nations regularly engage in the most abysmal actions against humanity possible,” she wrote.
Peter Yeo, president of the Better World Campaign, which supports the partnership between the U.S. and the UN, said the U.S. would lose leverage and influence by leaving the UN and defunding the UN would restrict the U.S.’s ability to push for international sanctions. He also argued it would be detrimental to defund UN organizations like the World Health Organization, which has been key to major successes such as eradicating polio and nearly extinguishing smallpox.
