Funding the UN: U.S., China, and EU Countries Fund About Two-Thirds, but U.S. is Withholding and China Owes Too: Russia and China Lead Disruptions of Human Rights Funding

  As the title of this post points out, the U.S., China, and the EU countries make up about two-thirds of UN funding in a normal year. The Trump administration has held back payments, seeking to apply leverage for UN reforms. I agree that many of those reforms are needed. The administration has pulled the U.S. out of several UN agencies. The UN’s extraordinary and irrational bias against Israel, which I wrote about here, remains a problem and is one of the main reasons for the U.S. withholding funds.

     Lottie Tellyn of GZero explains the recent Trump administration moves for UN funding

“On August 4, the Trump administration notified Congress of its intent to pay the United Nations $725 million – less than a fifth of the roughly $4 billion the UN says the United States owes in unpaid membership dues. It will also pay $125 million towards UN peacekeeping operations in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo, although it was asked to contribute $1.5 billion to peacekeeping in 2025.”

    Secretary General António Guterres called the UN’s financial predicament an “imminent financial collapse” due to unpaid fees. It has cut its budget by 9% this year and continues to downsize its workforce. Tellyn writes:

“…the shortfall has left the UN struggling to fund human rights projects in 87 countries including Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – last year, they observed over 1,300 trials, supported 67,000 torture victims, and helped release 4,000 people from arbitrary detention.”

     The U.S. accounts for 22% of the UN budget, and China accounts for 20%. The U.S. owes around $3-4 billion in unpaid dues, and China currently owes $455 million. Raphaël Viana David, a program manager at the International Service for Human Rights who researches UN funding, says that the U.S. and China are withholding funding to protest the UN not working in their favor. His research also found that China and Russia are blocking or cutting funding to UN investigations into human rights abuses, which they see as infringing on state sovereignty. The UN decides what each country must pay based on their economies. Factors including GDP per capita and debt burden are also considered. The U.S. has also stated that it wants to cut China’s influence in the UN. UN Committee for Contributions member Brett Schaefer noted:

“Budgets and contributions are often voted on by countries with little “financial skin in the game,” Schaefer said, explaining that “the obligations or the implications financially for those decisions are not necessarily distributed.”

     Tellyn explains the UN’s Article 19 provision that can strip the votes of those who don’t pay for two years:

“What can the UN do? The UN’s only real lever is Article 19 of its charter, which strips a member state of its vote if it owes more than two years’ unpaid fees to the regular UN budget, which excludes voluntary contributions to other UN agencies, such as UNICEF or the WHO.”

     The EU countries collectively fund 22.3% of the budget so as a bloc they are the biggest funders.

“What is the future of an organization where 42% of the budget is in the hands of only two countries, and those two countries are clearly seeking to wield influence?” Viana David asked. “Are we still, at [the] UN, one country, one vote, or is influence commensurate to your ability to pay?”

     As a result of the U.S. withholding general funding, and especially Russia and China specifically withholding funding from human rights investigations, the human rights arm of the UN remains underfunded. According to the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR):

“…the UN’s human rights pillar – the least funded of its three core pillars – faces severe cuts, with real-term reductions of up to 27% in 2025, and a tangible impact on human rights investigations and protection for individuals and communities on the ground.”

     ISHR notes in their report that China and Russia often work together at the UN to defund human rights:

“China and Russia’s proposals to cut resources for OHCHR or for HRC resolutions during 5C negotiations on the PPB or the HRC revised estimates demonstrate a targeted and nefarious effort to thwart human rights investigations and mechanisms that can play a powerful role in seeking to hold perpetrators of human rights violations accountable.”

     The table below from the report summarizes attempted blockage of human rights funding. Note that one attempt involves joint actions from the following countries: Belarus, China, Cuba, North Korea, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. With the possible addition of Myanmar, that is a list of the worst human rights abusers in the world, although Syria is no longer in the same category since Assad left. The graphics below that show more opposition to human rights issues led by Russia and China. While the U.S. and Israel have had specific rejections to human rights issues raised at the UN, it is Russia and China who have done the most work to oppose those human rights implementations.

    

 

References:

 

The UN’s “major donor syndrome”. Lottie Tellyn. GZero. August 27, 2026. The UN’s “major donor syndrome” - GZERO Media

Report: How States try to defund human rights at the UN. International Service for Human Rights. Report: How States try to defund human rights at the UN | ISHR

BUDGET BATTLES AT THE UN: HOW STATES TRY TO DEFUND HUMAN RIGHTS. International Service for Human Rights. October 2025. 20251020-O-ISHR-BudgetBattlesAtTheUN-Report-A4-EN-web.pdf