Trump’s U.N. ambassador has put the United Nations ‘on a diet’

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U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz says the Trump administration has put the United Nations “on a diet.”
Waltz says more than $1 billion has been cut from U.N. budgets, with roughly 3,000 headquarters positions eliminated and peacekeeping forces reduced.
But the administration says it doesn’t want America walking away from the U.N. altogether.

President Donald Trump arrives at the United Nations this week with a message from his ambassador about the sprawling international organization.

The diet is working.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz says the Trump administration has pushed through major spending and staffing reductions as part of its campaign to shrink the institution and refocus it on its original peace-and-security mission.

“We have the U.N. on a diet,” Waltz told Fox News Digital ahead of this week’s General Assembly.

Waltz said the administration has secured more than $1 billion in budget reductions.

Approximately 3,000 headquarters positions are being eliminated, while peacekeeping personnel have been reduced by roughly 25%.

Waltz has previously testified that the U.N.’s 2026 regular budget had been projected at approximately $3.45 billion and that a December agreement reduced that budget by about 15%, or $570 million.

The United States pays roughly one-fifth of the organization’s regular budget, meaning those cuts also reduced America’s assessment.

The Trump administration’s argument is straightforward: The U.N. has gotten too big, too expensive and too far removed from its core mission.

“The president is clear about getting the U.N. back to basics and helping it realize its potential,” Waltz told Fox.

Waltz has previously summarized his approach another way: The organization should “do less, and do it better.”

But there’s another interesting piece of the administration’s U.N. strategy.

Trump isn’t pulling America out.

Waltz said that despite the administration’s deep criticism of the organization, the United States still needs a place where governments — including adversaries — can sit down and talk.

“There’s got to be one place in the world where everyone can come together and put diplomacy first,” Waltz said.

And he made clear what the administration believes would happen if America simply packed up and left.

“If we just walked away, you’d have 192 countries talking without us.”

Waltz said Washington also has no interest in allowing another global power center to take America’s place.

“We don’t ever want to see a U.N. in Beijing or Moscow or Brussels,” he said.

The approach amounts to something different from simply abandoning the institution: stay in it, cut it down and try to redirect what remains.

Peacekeeping is a major target.

Waltz has argued that missions shouldn’t continue indefinitely without producing results, telling Congress earlier this year that operations lasting 30, 40 or 50 years shouldn’t simply exist forever.

The administration has pushed to shrink or close missions it considers ineffective while arguing that other countries should shoulder more of the burden for international security operations.

All of this provides the backdrop for Trump’s return to the U.N. this week.

The president is scheduled to address the General Assembly Tuesday as world leaders descend on New York.

Iran, Gaza, Russia, Ukraine and Trump’s new Greenland agreement are all expected to feature heavily in the week’s diplomacy.

But before Trump even reaches the podium, his ambassador has already provided a pretty succinct description of what the administration believes it has accomplished inside the building.

The U.N. is still there.

There’s just less of it.