The United States will make an initial payment toward the billions of dollars it owes the United Nations within weeks, according to comments by the US ambassador to the world body in an interview with Reuters, offering tentative relief to an organization warning it could face financial collapse as early as this summer.
US Ambassador Mike Waltz told Reuters that Washington would soon release a “significant” first tranche toward its arrears, though the final amount has yet to be determined. He said the payment would serve as a down payment on annual dues and would be made “in a matter of weeks,” linking the move to ongoing discussions over reforming the United Nations’ sprawling bureaucracy and funding model.
The remarks come two weeks after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres publicly warned that the 193-member organization was at risk of “imminent financial collapse” due to unpaid fees, the vast majority of which are owed by the United States. UN officials say more than 95% of outstanding contributions to the regular UN budget are owed by Washington, amounting to $2.19 billion by early February.
In addition to the regular budget arrears, the United States owes roughly $2.4 billion for current and past peacekeeping missions and $43.6 million for UN tribunals. Officials at the UN say the US failed to make any payment to the regular budget last year, leaving an unpaid balance of $827 million for 2025 and another $767 million due for 2026.
The funding shortfall comes despite the UN General Assembly approving a $3.45 billion regular budget for 2026 on December 30, following weeks of negotiations. The budget covers core operational costs, including headquarters operations in New York, staff salaries, diplomatic meetings, and development and human rights programs. The approved figure is about 7% lower than the 2025 budget, though still roughly $200 million higher than what Guterres had proposed.
The crisis has unfolded against the backdrop of a broader US retreat from multilateral institutions under President Donald Trump. While US arrears to the United Nations have grown substantially during his presidency, Washington has a long history of falling behind on its assessed contributions. The Trump administration has also cut voluntary funding to UN agencies and moved to exit several organizations, including the World Health Organization.
On Tuesday, Trump signed a congressional spending bill that includes $3.1 billion for US dues to the United Nations and other international organizations. Asked by Reuters whether the forthcoming payment would be applied to last year’s dues, 2026 obligations, or both, Waltz said it would go “towards the arrears” more broadly, while also acknowledging reforms already underway at the UN.
Waltz voiced strong support for Guterres’ UN80 reform initiative, launched last year to curb costs and streamline operations, though he argued the effort did not go far enough. He described the reforms as “an important first step,” adding that the UN bureaucracy had grown too large and needed to become far more efficient and focused on its core mission of peace and security.
Describing Washington’s approach as “tough love,” Waltz said the current UN funding and operational model was unsustainable for many countries. He singled out duplication across agencies as a major problem, noting that multiple UN bodies pursue overlapping mandates, including several focused primarily on climate change. The United States, he said, supports consolidating logistics and administrative functions across humanitarian agencies to reduce costs.
Guterres has warned that the UN could run out of cash by July and criticized what he called a “Kafkaesque” rule requiring the organization to credit back hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent dues to member states each year, even when those funds were never actually paid. Waltz said Washington supports changing the rule, arguing it exacerbates the organization’s cash flow problems.
He added that US peacekeeping arrears are partly the result of a mismatch between UN assessments and what US law allows to be paid, describing it as a “statutory disconnect” that he said would be addressed during the next round of negotiations on member state assessments, expected next year.
