United Nations Warily awaits Donald Trump's Return to Power

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
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United Nations Warily awaits Donald Trump's Return to Power

FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rocky Mount Event Center in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, October 30, 2024. REUTERS/Jay Paul/File Photo

The United Nations has been planning for the possible return of Donald Trump and the cuts to US funding and engagement with world body that are likely to come with his second term as president.
There was a sense of "déjà vu and some trepidation" at the 193-member world body, said one senior Asian diplomat, as Republican Trump won Tuesday's US election over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
"There is also some hope that a transactional administration will engage the UN on some areas even if it were to defund some dossiers. After all, what bigger and better global stage is there than the United Nations?" said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A US retreat at the UN could open the door for China, which has been building its influence in global diplomacy.
Trump has offered few specifics about foreign policy in his second term but supporters say the force of his personality and his "peace through strength" approach will help bend foreign leaders to his will. He has vowed to solve the war in Ukraine and is expected to give strong support to Israel in its conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Among the top concerns at the UN are whether the United States will decide to contribute less money to the world body and withdraw from key multinational institutions and agreements, including the world Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement.
US funding is the immediate worry. Washington is the UN's largest contributor - with China second - accounting for 22% of the core UN budget and 27% of the peacekeeping budget.
A country can be up to two years in arrears before facing the possible repercussion of losing its General Assembly vote.
'EXTREMELY HARD'
Trump came to power last time proposing to cut about a third off US diplomacy and aid budgets, which included steep reductions in funding for UN peacekeeping and international organizations. But Congress, which sets the federal US government budget, pushed back on Trump's proposal.
A UN spokesperson said at the time the proposed cuts would have made it impossible to continue all essential work.
"The UN secretariat has known that they could face a Trump comeback all year. There has been prudent planning behind the scenes on how to manage potential US budget cuts," said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.
"So (UN Secretary-General Antonio) Guterres and his team are not totally unprepared, but they know the next year will be extremely hard," he said.
Trump's team did not immediately respond to a query about his policy toward the UN after he takes office in January.
During his first term, Trump complained that the US was shouldering an unfair burden of the cost of the UN and pushed for reforms. Washington is traditionally slow to pay and when Trump left office in 2021 the US was in arrears about $600 million for the core budget and $2 billion for peacekeeping.
According to UN figures, President Joe Biden's administration currently owes $995 million for the core UN budget and $862 million for the peacekeeping budget.
"I don't want to pre-empt or speak about policies that may or may not happen, but we work with member states in the way we've always worked with member states," Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday.
In 2026, the UN Security Council will choose Guterres' successor, a decision in which the Trump administration will hold a veto power.
'GREAT NEWS FOR CHINA'
During Trump's first term, he was critical of the United Nations and wary of multilateralism. He announced plans to quit the World Health Organization, and pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN cultural agency UNESCO, a global climate change accord and the Iran nuclear deal.
When Biden succeeded him in 2021, he rescinded the US decision to withdraw from the WHO and returned the US to UNESCO and the climate agreement. Trump's campaign has said he would quit the climate deal again if he won office.
"It will survive. But, of course, it will probably survive severely undermined," Guterres told Reuters in September of a second withdrawal from the climate pact by Trump.
Ahead of the US election, a senior European diplomat said a Trump win would be "great news for China," recalling that during Trump's first term "the Chinese influence in the UN increased a lot because it was an open bar for the Chinese."
The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Trump again cuts UN funding and withdraws from international pacts "it will just give China the opportunity to present itself as the supporter number one of multilateralism."
US funding for some other UN agencies is also in question. One of the first moves by the Trump administration in 2017 was to cut funding for UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the international body's agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries.
Trump's administration said UNFPA "supports ... a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization." The UN said that was an inaccurate perception. Biden restored US funding for UNFPA.
If Trump again cuts funding, UNFPA warned that "women will lose lifesaving services in some of the world's most devastating crises" in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine.
Under Trump's first presidency, the US also opposed long-agreed international language on women's sexual and reproductive rights and health in UN resolutions over concern that it would advance abortion rights.
A senior African diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up the impending return of Trump for multilateralism and the United Nations: "The heavens help us."



UN Nuclear Agency’s Board Condemns Iran for the 2nd Time this Year for Failing to Fully Cooperate

Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi attends a press conference during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters of the United Nations seat in Vienna, Austria, 20 November 2024.  EPA/HEINZ-PETER BADER
Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi attends a press conference during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters of the United Nations seat in Vienna, Austria, 20 November 2024. EPA/HEINZ-PETER BADER
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UN Nuclear Agency’s Board Condemns Iran for the 2nd Time this Year for Failing to Fully Cooperate

Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi attends a press conference during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters of the United Nations seat in Vienna, Austria, 20 November 2024.  EPA/HEINZ-PETER BADER
Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi attends a press conference during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters of the United Nations seat in Vienna, Austria, 20 November 2024. EPA/HEINZ-PETER BADER

The UN nuclear watchdog’s board on Thursday condemned Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the agency, the second time it has done so in just five months.
The International Atomic Energy Agency also called on Tehran to provide answers in a long-running investigation into uranium particles found at two locations that Tehran has failed to declare as nuclear sites.
Nineteen members of the IAEA board voted for the resolution, while Russia, China and Burkina Faso opposed it, and 12 abstained and one did not vote, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-doors vote.
The resolution was put forward by France, Germany and Britain, supported by the United States. It comes at a critical time, ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Trump’s first term in office was marked by a particularly tense period with Iran, when the US president pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran. In 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, and imposed even harsher sanctions that have since hobbled Iran's economy further.
The resolution comes on the heels of a confidential report earlier this week in which the IAEA said Iran has defied international demands to rein in its nuclear program and has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
That report, seen by the AP on Tuesday, said that as of Oct. 26, Iran has accumulated 182.3 kilograms (401.9 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%, an increase of 17.6 kilograms (38.8 pounds) since the last IAEA report in August. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
The resolution approved on Thursday requires the IAEA to now produce a “comprehensive and updated assessment” of Iran’s nuclear activities, which could eventually trigger a referral to the UN Security Council to consider more sanctions on Tehran.
In a joint statement issued after the approval of the resolution, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the Iranian foreign ministry condemned the passing of the resolution, saying that Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami has issued orders to launch new and advanced centrifuges, powerful machines that spin rapidly to enrich uranium.
In the past, the IAEA has named two locations near Tehran — Varamin and Turquzabad — where there have been traces of processed uranium, according to IAEA inspectors. Thursday’s resolution honed in on those locations, asking Tehran to provide “technically credible explanations” for the presence of the uranium particles at the sites."
The IAEA has urged Iran to also provide answers about the origin and current location of that nuclear material in order for it “to be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”
Western officials suspect that the uranium traces discovered by the IAEA could provide evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until at least 2003. Tehran insists its program is peaceful.
One of the sites became known publicly in 2018 after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed it at the United Nations and called it a clandestine nuclear warehouse hidden at a rug-cleaning plant.
Iran denied that, though IAEA inspectors later found the man-made uranium particles there.
While the number of sites about which the IAEA has questions has been reduced from four to two since 2019, lingering questions have been a persistent source of tensions.
On the subject of Varamin, the IAEA said that inspectors believe Iran used the site from 1999 until 2003 as a pilot project to process uranium ore and convert it into a gas form, which then can be enriched through spinning in a centrifuge. The IAEA said buildings at the site had been demolished in 2004.
Turquzabad, the second location, is where the IAEA believes Iran brought some of the material from Varamin amid the demolition, though it said that alone cannot “explain the presence of the multiple types of isotopically altered particles” found there.
Thursday’s resolution before the 35-member board at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, called on Tehran to explain the presence of the uranium particles at Varamin and Turquzabad, inform the UN nuclear watchdog about the current whereabouts of that nuclear material, and grant access to IAEA inspectors to all Iranian nuclear locations.
A draft of the resolution was seen by the AP.
Tehran continues to maintain that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes and has told the IAEA that it has declared all of the nuclear material, activities and locations required under a so-called Safeguard Agreement it has with the IAEA.
Iranian officials have vowed to retaliate immediately if a resolution is passed. In the past, Tehran has responded to IAEA resolutions by stepping up its nuclear activities.
The resolution also requires IAEA director general Rafael Grossi to provide an updated assessment of Iran’s nuclear program — including the possible presence of undeclared nuclear material at the two locations — by spring 2025 at the latest.
The assessment could be a basis for possible further steps by European nations, diplomats said, leading to potential escalation in tensions between Iran and the West. It could also provide a basis for European countries to trigger sanctions against Iran ahead of October 2025, when the original 2015 Iran nuclear deal expires, the diplomats said.