United States withdrawal from 66 international organizations: a new step in a disengagement initiated in 2025

On January 7, 2026, the United States announced its withdrawal from 66 international organizations, including 31 entities within the United Nations system. This decision marks a new phase in a disengagement from multilateral cooperation initiated early 2025, directly affecting progress toward all the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in the areas of climate, gender equality, global health, and development financing. An analysis.

Key measures of the executive order

The January 7 presidential executive order provides for :

• the termination of U.S. participation in 66 multilateral entities,
• the suspension of associated voluntary contributions,
• the end of any engagement deemed contrary to U.S. “national interests”.
• Organizations affected by the 2026 withdrawal

Organizations affected by the 2026 withdrawal

Among the 31 United Nations-related entities targeted by the January 7, 2026 announcement are :

• the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the foundational framework for international climate negotiations since 1992,
• the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading international scientific authority on climate change,
• UN Women, the UN agency responsible for promoting gender equality and coordinating policies on the rights of women and girls,
• the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the main multilateral organization for sexual and reproductive health, maternal health, and the prevention of gender-based violence,
• Education Cannot Wait, the global fund for education in emergencies, hosted by the United Nations,
• the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),
• several departments and offices of the UN Secretariat, particularly in the areas of trade, development, protection, and inter-agency coordination.

The 35 non-UN organizations affected are mostly technical or sectoral bodies. Their withdrawal nevertheless contributes to a cumulative effect on international coordination capacities supporting the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

A disengagement initiated in 2025

The January 2026 announcement is part of a broader sequence that began on January 20, 2025, with the arrival in power of the Trump administration, marked by a series of decisions directly affecting development financing and multilateral cooperation :

• Withdrawal from or suspension of U.S. participation in major multilateral institutions, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
• Cessation of participation in certain normative human rights bodies, including the Human Rights Council,
• Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change,
• Sharp reductions in international aid and the suspension of numerous bilateral and multilateral financial commitments,
• Closure of USAID, the main operator of U.S. development assistance,
• Reintroduction of the global gag rule, cutting U.S. funding to organizations involved in abortion access and sexual and reproductive health.

Beyond institutional withdrawals, the U.S. administration has also expressed its rejection of the United Nations 2030 Agenda, the international reference framework adopted in 2015 to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

U.S. financing and international aid : cascading effect

The budget cuts implemented in 2025 and the closure of USAID have had immediate and lasting effects :

• Interruption of numerous voluntary contributions to UN agencies, which represent a significant share of their resources,
• Reduction or termination of thousands of humanitarian, health, education, and climate programs,
• Weakening of the operational capacity of several agencies, forcing them to scale back activities, staffing, or geographic presence,
• Sudden loss of funding for many NGOs and developing countries, and lasting disruption of intervention chains in low- and middle-income countries,
• Significant impacts on data collection, interruptions to research programs, and reduced access to treatments.

These developments have a particularly strong impact on the multilateral system given that the United States is the largest provider of official development assistance (30 % of total ODA, or 65 billion USD in 2024), with a spillover effect on other donors.

According to a study published in The Lancet, more than 22 million people, including 5.4 million children, could die from preventable causes by 2030 due to cuts in international aid by the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Cuts to USAID health programs alone could lead to 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million children under five.

Climate : weakening the multilateral architecture

The withdrawal announced in 2026 from the UNFCCC and the IPCC directly affects the architecture of international climate governance. Since 1992, the UNFCCC has provided the central legal framework for climate negotiations, organizing the climate conferences (COPs), while IPCC reports offer the authoritative synthesis of scientific knowledge used by states to define climate pathways and guide multilateral discussions.

This withdrawal occurs in a context where climate cooperation relies heavily on collective mechanisms for knowledge production, political coordination, and financing. The absence of a major actor weakens the multilateral system’s capacity to structure and deliver coordinated responses to climate change. It also alters the political balance of climate conferences and sets a precedent that could encourage other states to adopt a selective approach to multilateral climate frameworks.

UN Women and UNFPA : asserting an ideological line on women’s rights and health

The U.S. withdrawal from UN Women and UNFPA reflects a broader orientation of U.S. policy toward multilateral frameworks related to women’s rights and sexual and reproductive health.

Regarding UNFPA, all funding was suspended as early as 2025, representing an estimated total of around 377 million USD. In 2024, the country was the organization’s largest contributor, with 286 million USD. These funds primarily supported humanitarian interventions in more than twenty-five countries and territories in crisis, where UNFPA plays a central role in access to maternal health, contraception, prevention of gender-based violence, and support for women and girls in vulnerable situations.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, this funding enabled an average of 130,390 women per day to access contraceptive services. In 2025, approximately 11.7 million women and adolescent girls were denied access to contraception, leading to 4.2 million unintended pregnancies and around 8,340 deaths linked to pregnancy and childbirth complications over one year.

The withdrawal from UN Women also affects the coordination of gender equality policies within the UN system and the monitoring of international commitments on the rights of women and girls, which are central to several Sustainable Development Goals. The United States is UN Women’s8th-largest donor, allocating 27.39 million USD in 2024, or 4.6 % of the organization’s budget. In addition, the United States has repeatedly opposed multilateral resolutions referencing sexual and reproductive rights, both at the United Nations and in other international forums.

A global health strategy refocused on bilateral agreements, with direct effects on multilateral mechanisms

At the end of 2025, the new America First Global Health Strategy provides for the conclusion of dozens of multi-year bilateral health cooperation agreements between the United States and recipient countries of U.S. aid. This approach prioritizes the protection of the U.S. population from transnational health risks, targeted financing of essential health products, and the promotion of solutions from U.S. economic actors.

The strategy also represents a break with the traditional role of international organizations in implementing health aid, in favor of government-to-government cooperation and expanded partnerships with the private sector and faith-based organizations. It is part of a logic of gradual funding reductions and accelerated transfer of financial and operational responsibilities to partner states through conditional agreements with co-investment requirements and measurable results.

Several analyses, including from the Center for Global Development and Think Global Health, highlight that increased bilateralization limits the capacity to respond to transnational health threats such as epidemics, antimicrobial resistance, or the health impacts of climate change, which have historically relied on multilateral coordination mechanisms. These analyses also point to the limitations of framing global health as a lever of geopolitical rivalry, particularly in relations with China, and to the lack of consideration for climate–health interactions.

Toward transactional international cooperation

Taken together, the choices made since the beginning of the Trump presidency in 2025 reflect a structural shift in international cooperation :

• Selection of multilateral frameworks deemed compatible with short-term national priorities,
• Withdrawal from arrangements perceived as constraining or normative in the areas of diversity, climate, and equality,
• Gradual replacement of international cooperation with a transactional and bilateral logic.

This abrupt shift raises a central question for the future of global governance, multilateralism, and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals as a whole, at a time when the United States holds a central position in international forums.