Former U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Waltz testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 15, as he seeks confirmation to be the next U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations. One group of people who very much want to see him succeed are the representatives of other U.N. member States. Since President Donald Trump returned to office nearly six months ago, U.S. diplomacy at the U.N. has been chaotic, unpredictable, and enormously disruptive. Should he be confirmed, foreign ambassadors and international officials expect Waltz to stake out positions on many issues that they will find hard to swallow, including on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But they are desperate to interact with a senior member of the Trump administration who may be able to explain to them what, if any, vision it has of the U.N.’s future.
At the time of Trump’s inauguration, U.N. members expected his initial nominee for permanent representative, Elise Stefanik, to arrive in New York in a matter of weeks. But as the administration slow-rolled Stefanik’s nomination and eventually dropped it altogether to keep her Republican seat in a closely divided Congress, Washington launched a blistering array of attacks on the multilateral system. The United States has quit arrangements such as the Paris climate change agreement and frozen almost all funding to the U.N. secretariat and humanitarian agencies, forcing the world organization – which was already short of cash – into a financial panic. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s decision this week to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the independent U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, for calling for the prosecution of Israeli officials over the war in Gaza was just the latest episode in the downward spiral in U.S.-U.N. relations.
Throughout this whirlwind, senior U.N. staff and foreign diplomats have struggled to gain insights into the administration’s longer-term plans for the organization. Secretary-General António Guterres, who had a fairly decent working relationship with Trump during his first term, is yet to have a phone conversation with him, or even with Rubio. A holdover team of diplomats at the U.S. mission in New York have been under instruction to cut terms like “diversity” from U.N. agreements, as part of Washington’s anti-woke agenda. Mid-level U.S. officials have declared, in an almost off-hand fashion, that Washington no longer feels obligated to observe landmark U.N. agreements, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet they also have struggled to get clear guidance on U.S. policy on specific situations, such as how to manage the breakdown of law and order in Haiti and the civil war in Sudan, that were high on the Biden administration’s agenda.
At times, the United States has adopted positions that are impossible to fit into a logical pattern. This spring, the administration announced that it would cut off funding for blue helmet peace operations – accusing them of corruption – before mounting a push in the Security Council to renew the mandate for one of the biggest of these missions, in South Sudan. Most U.N. members have concluded that different parts of the administration are chasing different policy goals, and that only a fully-credentialed political appointee in New York can impose some coherence. They were relieved when Trump announced Waltz’s nomination in early May, even if the former national security advisor suffered a rocky few months in the White House, and they regret his confirmation has taken months.
High Expectations, Hard Questions
Assuming Waltz gets the votes he needs on Capitol Hill, he will thus arrive in New York facing high expectations and a lot of hard questions. He will not face them alone. Two Senate-appointed ambassador-ranked deputies, Jennifer Locetta (covering political affairs) and Jeffrey Bartos (covering management and budget matters) had their confirmation hearings on July 9, while former Deputy Middle East Special Envoy Morgan Ortagus is expected to serve as a senior adviser to Waltz. Understandably, there is speculation in Turtle Bay, as the riverside U.N. headquarters in New York is known, about how the new U.S. top team will work, but Locetta has strong ties to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, which may boost her ability to reach Trump, so U.N. officials hope the team may bring a clearer sense of U.S. priorities.
In the short term, many member States will want to talk to Waltz about money. U.S. funding freezes and cuts have already done huge harm to some big U.N. aid agencies, such as the World Food Programme, which has announced thousands of job cuts and warned it is cutting off life-saving aid. And senior U.N. staff are unsure whether Washington will pay the supposedly obligatory “assessed contributions” into the U.N.’s main budget. Guterres has launched a cost-saving drive, instructing the secretariat to lower costs by 20 percent and shed a fifth of staff in 2026 (perhaps not coincidentally the U.S. assessment is meant to cover 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget).
Diplomats assume that the secretary-general hopes the U.S. will reward this belt-tightening by paying its dues. But cynics (and most U.N. officials are supremely cynical right now) fear Washington will pocket these initial cuts, and then ask for more. At the end of the day, most U.N. insiders expect the United States to stump up some cash to cover those U.N. activities it still approves of, such as the South Sudan peace operation. In their confirmation hearings, both Locetta and Bartos spoke of the need to improve the efficiency of U.N. peacekeeping, rather than eviscerating it entirely.
U.N. members are also wondering how Waltz will handle some of the most sensitive items on the Security Council agenda. Given Waltz’s track record as a strong supporter of Israel, most assume that he will look for an early opportunity to weigh in on the Middle East. For much of the first half of this year, U.N. members attempted to avoid a showdown in New York with the Trump administration over Gaza, with even the Palestinian mission in New York counselling caution. In June, the elected members of the Security Council finally broke cover with a resolution calling for a ceasefire, which the U.S. vetoed (the General Assembly followed up with a further call for an end to hostilities backed by 149 countries, with the United States in a minority of 12 opposing). The 12-day Israel-Iran war drew attention away from Gaza, and most U.N. members hope that current ceasefire talks succeed, averting any major rows in the Council for the time being.
Potential Fights Over Peacekeeping – and Peace
Nonetheless, another potential argument over the Middle East is looming at the U.N. in August, when the Security Council is due to renew the mandate for the 10,000-strong peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon. There have been persistent rumors in Beirut and New York that Israel, which has accused the U.N. force of failing to quash Hezbollah (a goal the peacekeepers insist is beyond their mandate and their capacity) will call for the mission to shrink significantly. The details of Israel’s position remain unclear, and U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Thomas Barrack, who also serves as Special Envoy to Syria, has welcomed Lebanon’s own plans for disarming Hezbollah. But diplomats following the file still expect the United States to look to raise hard questions about the continuing utility of the U.N. peacekeepers, which it has called an “abject failure,” and potentially call for the mission’s downsizing. That could lead to a spat with powers including France and China that have soldiers in the mission, which could create an opportunity for Waltz to show his commitment to supporting Israel’s security, if he is in the post.
Representatives of U.S. allies hope that the new U.S. ambassador may prove more like-minded on some other files, not least Ukraine and Russia, in light of his well-documented hawkish views toward Moscow. In February, Washington stunned its European partners by proposing a Security Council resolution calling for a rapid Russia-Ukraine ceasefire without referring to Kyiv’s right to retain its sovereignty and territorial integrity (stock points of reference in U.N. resolutions backed by the Biden administration). Since then, European diplomats have watched nervously as their U.S. and Russian counterparts have looked to cooperate on issues including Syria. This rapprochement has been far from total – Council discussions of North Korea have, for example, remained tense. With Trump now expressing irritation with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lack of interest in a ceasefire, Ukrainian and European officials hope he might be firmer with Russia in the U.N.
Britain, France, and Germany are also looking to maintain common ground with Waltz over the Iranian nuclear question in the Security Council. Since the start of the year, the “E3” have been considering the idea of restoring U.N. sanctions on Tehran that were suspended as part of the 2015 nuclear deal. This is a reflection of their concerns about the state of Iran’s nuclear program – now uncertain after last month’s U.S. strikes – and an effort to maintain one area of alignment with Washington. The Security Council resolution endorsing the 2015 deal includes a mechanism for reimposing sanctions that circumvents a Chinese or Russian veto, but this expires in October 2025. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy emphasized using this option again this week, and the Europeans likely expect Waltz – also a known Iran hawk – to favor putting it into action if U.S.-Iran negotiations stall and Tehran continues blocking access to international inspectors.
Ultimately, however, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. has to defer to his masters in Washington on first-order files such as Ukraine and Iran. Successive U.S. permanent representatives have found that they have greater leeway to shape policy over less strategically consequential issues, and Waltz may come to the same conclusion. There is no shortage of such crises to absorb his attention. One would be to get a grip on the collapse of Haiti, where a small Kenyan-led force is struggling to halt gangs taking control of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The Biden administration decided in its final months in office that the only way to restore order was to send in a larger international mission, potentially under U.N. command. While the Trump administration has allowed this idea to drift, it is the sort of initiative a U.S. ambassador in New York can champion.
The Security Council also has an unusual opportunity to do some good in Syria following the Trump administration’s decision to engage with the post-Assad government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa. The United States has already dropped some sanctions against Damascus, and is urging the Security Council to terminate or at least water down its own measures against Sharaa and his movement, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS); Sharaa has been on the U.N. terrorism sanctions list since 2013 because of his ties to al-Qaeda (although HTS disavowed the terrorist group and its goals since 2016). China, which worries about Uyghur fighters in Syria, is not so keen to see HTS delisted. The U.N. system could also offer technical support to the transitional authorities as they work out governance and economic issues, potentially by setting up a new office in Damascus to coordinate assistance. This would need the backing of Syria’s new leaders – who still resent the U.N.’s efforts to engage former President Bashar al-Assad during the civil war – but if they are amenable, Waltz and his team have an opportunity to shepherd a new set of arrangements for helping the country achieve stability.
Shaping the Institution via the Next Secretary-General
Even if Waltz wants to focus on specific crises, he will find that he cannot ignore some important procedural and institutional issues in New York. These extend beyond the U.N.’s immediate budget crisis. The next 18 months will see candidates bidding to replace Guterres as secretary-general in 2027. For the Trump administration – which like the other permanent members can use its veto in the Security Council to block potential candidates – this is an opportunity to make its mark on the long-term future of the organization. Guterres, a lifelong social democrat, has used his time in office to promote a broadly progressive agenda, and has infuriated Washington with criticisms of Israel over Gaza. For Waltz, the secretary-general selection process is an opportunity to look for potential candidates of a more conservative bent and better-aligned with Washington.
More broadly, the way that Waltz and the Trump administration deal with the U.N. in the coming months and years will have a huge impact on the organization’s long-term trajectory. The majority of U.N. member States are profoundly frustrated by the organization’s overall lack of progress on managing conflict, promoting development, and stemming climate change. As I have noted elsewhere, many diplomats believe that this year’s volley of U.S. budget cuts may ultimately do the U.N. some good, by forcing international officials to do “less with less.”
But some worry that the administration is bent on driving the organization into irrelevance, or predict that Washington is opening space for China to assert greater power over the institution. The Trump administration has demonstrated its ability to wreak havoc on domestic institutions, such as it did in gutting and then shutting the U.S. Agency for International Development, without giving much thought to the consequences, and may continue a similar course at the U.N. Some diplomats note that the United States stayed away from recent U.N. conferences on climate change and development, and wonder if the global body and its ecosystem now amounts to an “international community minus one.”
As and when Waltz is confirmed and he and his team take the reins in New York, they will send crucial signals about where the world organization is headed. If they double down on a disruptive, slash-and-burn approach to multilateral cooperation, other U.N. members may conclude the institution is irredeemably compromised and question their own multilateral commitments. If Waltz adopts a more pragmatic posture and indicates that he and the Trump administration at least want some parts of the system to work, other diplomats will breathe a sigh of relief, and go back to the thankless tasks of keeping the U.N. afloat and the United States on board with it.
