It is easy to dismiss the United Nations. But those who are inclined to rush to judgment should pause to reflect on the fact that its more than 190 member states, with only a few exceptions, are sending representatives from across the world to New York City for the 80th session of the high-level week of the UN General Assembly. The vast majority are sending heads of state, Presidents or Prime Ministers. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, has been denied a visa by US President Donald Trump, but will deliver his speech by video. If turning up is what matters, then the sheer popularity of the forum with world leaders is a clear indicator that the United Nations is widely viewed to be politically relevant and an important platform for shaping international discourse and influencing public opinion.
When measured by its ability to deliver impactful, material solutions to the most critical global problems, the United Nations relevance looks far worse. It has been radically diminished by the United States decision to delay critical budgetary support and put caps on its contributions to the UN peacekeeping. This has threatened to create a spiral downward as other states, especially China, delay their own financial support for the beleaguered institution. The upshot is that the United Nations ability to tackle climate change, global health risks, humanitarian disasters, technological change and longer-term development goals is shrinking, and it is shrinking rapidly. Rhetorical attacks by the United States are exacerbating the situation. Its decision to abandon, by withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Health Organization has disrupted progress on two of the greatest challenges for the 21st century.
The most fundamental challenge to the relevance of the United Nations is intimately linked to perceptions of its legitimacy. For many, this has been irretrievably compromised. Great-power hypocrisy is not new, but for many at the United Nations it has reached new heights and eroded the institution’s relevance in its most central role, which is to ascribe or deny legitimacy to the use of force in international relations.
Ongoing importance
The UN has repeatedly proven its ability to fulfil its mandate, from securing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to eradicating smallpox through the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) and creating UNICEF, which has helped millions of children receive everything from vaccinations to sanitation.
Even in the challenging context of recent years, the UN has continued proving its ability to strike major accords to help solve the world’s biggest problems. This year alone it has brought into being the Compromiso de Sevilla (a renewed global framework for financing sustainable development) and, through the WHO, the Pandemic Agreement, which will improve how the world prepares for and responds to outbreaks such as Covid-19.
Furthermore, while the UN’s current security architecture has been criticized given the proliferation of conflicts today, it is precisely these situations that make the UN’s peacekeeping and mediation efforts just as important in today’s world as they were 80 years ago.
Global reputation
Under the second Trump administration, the United States is stepping back from the UN system it helped to create following the Second World War. In part, this is the normal partisan pendulum, with US engagement with the United Nations waxing and waning with successive Democratic and Republican administrations. The relationship reflects the deep and growing partisan polarization in the United States on the United Nations. As the 2025 Chicago Council Survey finds, Democrats (62%) are far more likely than Republicans (29%) to say that strengthening the United Nations is a very important goal for US foreign policy—the largest partisan divide on this question in the Council’s 50 years of polling.
Though the United Nations may not be a priority for Americans—and certainly not for the Trump administration—the United Nations’ image around the world remains favorable. Most publics in the 25-nation 2025 Pew Global Attitudes Survey hold net-positive views of the United Nations, and several nations—such as South Africa, Nigeria and Germany—have seen favorable views of the United Nations rise over the past year. That perception makes the United Nations a still-useful venue for international contestation—and a tool for nations seeking international power and prestige.
With the United States stepping back from the United Nations, China is looking to step up. Indeed, Beijing’s influence within the United Nations has steadily grown in recent years as China has taken over leadership positions throughout the UN agency system. That reflects Beijing’s pursuit of greater international influence—and the Chinese public backs it. As the 2025 Chicago Council-Carter Center survey shows, two-thirds of Chinese citizens (68%) say that China’s participation in the United Nations has been very important for influencing global policies, and three in four (77%) agree that China should be more willing to make decisions on global problems within the UN framework—even if it means China will sometimes have to compromise on policies that aren’t its first choice.
If the United States steps back from the United Nations, others will step in. But when the pendulum swings back to greater engagement, Washington might find itself less capable of shaping an international system that has adjusted to its absence.
A multipolar balancing act
The United Nations’ 80th anniversary arrives at a moment of paradox: its institutional architecture remains anchored in the post-1945 settlement, yet the order it was designed to govern is increasingly contested by Russia, China and the Global South. Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the post-Soviet Central Asian states, where the Western-backed economic and political transitions of the 1990s and 2000s have yielded to competing influences, norms and regional organizations supported by Moscow and Beijing.
Central Asian states’ recent UN votes on Ukraine highlight the challenges smaller powers face in this contested landscape. In 2014, they abstained or avoided the General Assembly resolution affirming Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea; eight years later, none supported the resolution condemning Moscow’s full-scale invasion, nor did they back Russia’s removal from the Human Rights Council.
These voting patterns exemplify the international “exit from hegemony”—the gradual erosion of the US-led liberal order. Central Asian governments do not want to isolate Russia, yet they uphold the UN principle of territorial integrity and engage with the United Nations on climate change, counter-narcotics and conflict prevention. Their votes reflect careful calculations about geopolitical power dynamics and economic needs.
In 2025, the UN’s future lies in adapting to and facilitating the co-existence of these overlapping orders—a world where the Central Asian states can deepen regional ties, court Chinese and European Union investment and connectivity, maintain Russian security and migration links and maintain cordial relations with the United States, all while avoiding choices that would force them to take sides.
An important test for the UN’s role on climate
This is a challenging moment for the relevance of UN processes to global climate governance. Successive secretaries-general of the United Nations have hosted climate gatherings to accompany the annual gatherings of the UN General Assembly. This year is no exception.
2025 is an important test for the United Nations’ role on climate for several reasons. As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries are supposed to periodically update their so-called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), their pledges of intent of action to address climate change. New pledges were due in February but only 36 states have announced new ones. By year end, more are expected, including from the world’s largest emitter, China.
Some countries may issue new NDCs in time for the UN General Assembly, but others will do so before the annual conference of parties (COP) that meets in the Amazonian city of Belém in Brazil in November. These annual gatherings of tens of thousands of delegates and observers have lost steam as an important driver of progress. The real action is one of country implementation and the transition to clean energy.
With the United States announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, it is an open question whether other countries will abandon efforts to address climate change, despite accelerating climate impacts. The Trump administration is pressuring other countries to embrace fossil fuels and reject renewables. But, with China supplying the globe with cheap renewables, batteries and electric vehicles, the rest of the world has diminishing incentives to stick with technologies of the past.
China itself has a way to go to reduce its dependence on coal. But, if UN processes can help keep pressure on China to break free of coal, the organization can claim some continued relevance going forward.
Surviving in a fractured world
As the United Nations’ 80th birthday candles are lit and world leaders descend upon its Manhattan headquarters for a week of lofty speeches, its challenges appear more daunting than ever, from tackling intractable conflicts to replenishing fast-emptying budgets that enable life-saving humanitarian assistance to millions of people around the world.
In times of crisis, criticisms of the United Nations’ real and imagined shortcomings and inefficiencies tend to be magnified, ignoring the fact that it’s a consensus, state-driven body that relies on political will and sustained financing to fulfill its mandates.
Amidst deepening global political divides and Washington’s sharp return to unilateralism, the outlook is grim for any possibility of ambitious collective actions and reforms. These obstacles notwithstanding, the United Nations is as relevant, and needed, as ever. Its universal character, institutional capacities, implementation muscle, and broad-based legitimacy as a venue for dialogue and diplomacy are irreplaceable in a fractured world.
Beyond their oft-repeated pledges of support for the United Nations and calls for international cooperation and solidarity, countries that are truly committed to preserving multilateral approaches need, more than ever, to expend political capital and act decisively to help the organization fulfill its core mandates, including by building issue-driven, cross-regional coalitions and securing additional funding, however limited in scope. Mexico and Norway, for example, are leading a “UN80 Initiative” which aims to bring together like-minded countries in support of practical reforms advocated by the secretary-general. By any measure, however, salvaging the United Nations’ financially-starved humanitarian capabilities should be the most urgent task.
UN without the US
If the United Nations did not exist, you could never create it today. The globe’s 193 nations would never be able to reach agreement on key questions of mission, structure and priorities. That they did so 80 years ago was a function of the cataclysmic forces of the Second World War and the architectural moment that emerged out of a time of vast destruction. That said, the United Nations is in a clear crisis. The United States has retracted essential financial contributions, plunging the organization into financial freefall. The Security Council is deadlocked politically and its composition, essentially frozen since 1945, has undercut its global legitimacy. International cooperation is on a downward slide as an age of austerity, self-interestedness, pitched global competition, and ascendent populism prevails.
The United Nations remains relevant as a source of lifesaving assistance for vulnerable people around the world, a standard setter in key areas, and a forum for global governance that is unique in its universality, the breadth of its remit and the powerful, foundational treaties that underlie it, bringing together virtually all the nations of the world under a common set of goals and values. The Trump administration’s antipathy toward multilateralism is too entrenched to hope for an awakening to the virtues of global cooperation. In many ways, the United States made the United Nations. The question now is what the United Nations will make of itself without, or with very little of, the United States.
Trump’s approach to the UN signals a deeper shift in US foreign policy — a retreat from multilateralism towards unilateralism. His maiden UN speech in 2017 laid out the template. In a definitive repudiation of globalism, he framed national sovereignty as the “fundamental principle” of international relations. International cooperation, he said, was acceptable but never at the cost of national decision-making or prosperity. In Trump’s worldview, there is no room for the “supra-nationalism” that enthralled liberals after the Cold War.
Trump’s emphasis on sovereignty and his critique of intrusive liberal internationalism resonated with many developing countries, including India. But his 2017 speech also heralded a string of withdrawals and funding threats. In his first term, he left the Paris Climate Agreement, UNESCO, the Human Rights Council and the Iran nuclear deal. He threatened cuts to UN agencies and questioned the value of peacekeeping. The Biden administration reversed this approach. In the second term, Trump has doubled down — turning disruption into comprehensive policy.
The big difference now is an ideological playbook: The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The conservative manifesto brims with skepticism of internationalism. It calls for slashing US contributions to agencies seen as undermining sovereignty or promoting “radical social policies” such as gender equality and LGBTQ rights. It goes further than cutting funds, seeking to transform multilateral bodies into instruments of American policy and even floating the possibility of leaving the UN if it fails to align with administration objectives. UN policies supporting sustainable development or climate mitigation are a no-go for Trump.
Since January 2025, this agenda has been executed at remarkable speed. Washington has again withdrawn from the WHO, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council. Funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has ceased. US support for the Paris Agreement and the new Climate Loss and Damage Fund has been halted. There has been an unprecedented cut of more than 80 per cent in US contributions to UN operations, including peacekeeping and global health.
As the American retreat creates a vacuum, China is poised to fill it. Beijing brings its own great-power ambition to the UN. It campaigns systematically to place its nationals in influential posts, not only in visible leadership but also in technical and administrative roles shaping standards, auditing and membership decisions. It sponsors development initiatives aligned with the Belt and Road and promotes “global development,” “global security,” “global civilisation” and “global governance” — concepts designed to buttress Chinese strategy for international leadership. Beijing still has some distance to go before supplanting US dominance of the UN and other multilateral institutions, yet its activism has already made it an indispensable actor — an outcome eased by US disengagement.
This new dynamic plays out against a broader fatigue with multilateralism. Around the turn of the millennium, the UN seemed at a high-water mark with the launch of the WTO and the Millennium Development Goals. Since then, populist nationalism, China’s rise and transatlantic divisions have eroded consensus. The UNSC is gridlocked by the US-China and US-Russia rivalries; even humanitarian issues are paralysed by competing vetoes. Trump has not caused this decline but has accelerated it. As the UN turns 80, it faces deep structural and political obstacles. Key agencies are in a financial crisis, voluntary contributions have plummeted, and calls for reform — especially UNSC expansion — remain blocked.
The real question is not simply whether the US or China will dominate the UN, but whether powers like India can help craft a multilateralism fit for an age of rivalry and rapid change. For India, the turbulence brings both risk and opportunity. The old tropes of its multilateralism — Security Council expansion or demands on the North across a wide range of issues — have little chance of advancing in the current circumstances. New Delhi must instead focus on a few issues of high priority, such as global governance of AI and build like-minded coalitions that cut across the North-South divide.
India at the United Nations
Above all, New Delhi should raise its contributions to the UN’s regular budget, which now stands at about $38 million — less than one per cent. In contrast, China contributes about $680 million (roughly 20 per cent), and the US leads with $820 million (about 22 per cent). Both powers also make large voluntary contributions to UN activities through specialised agencies. India, too, must raise its voluntary contributions to agencies whose work intersects with its national interests. As it pays more to the UN to match its position as the world’s fourth-largest economy, India should also pursue a broader agenda for reform of the UN system as a whole, not just UNSC expansion. Reducing bureaucratic flab, cutting through multiple inefficiencies and narrowing the organisation’s focus could make the UN a more effective instrument for the global majority.
Trump’s second-term assault on the UN highlights the fragility of the post-1945 multilateral order. China is yet to convince the world that a future multilateralism led by it would be a better alternative. India, which has long defined itself as a champion of the “Global South”, cannot simply lament this erosion. If New Delhi wishes to shape the rules of a turbulent world, it must shoulder greater responsibilities in crafting a new multilateralism for an age when neither Washington nor Beijing commands universal legitimacy.
What lies next ?
The UN80 Initiative calls for the reform process to be “inclusive and transparent”, having highlighted young and marginalized voices as being crucial to securing peace and security.
Inclusion will be critical to securing progress on the SDGs, too. A more inclusive UN that reflects the voices, needs and priorities of member states and other stakeholders strengthens legitimacy and trust, making its decisions and actions more representative and sustainable.
These reforms will form just one part of a broader reimagination of international cooperation that the UN recognizes is needed in the face of today’s pressures on multilateralism and the traditional humanitarian aid system. The World Economic Forum is working to support this agenda through the Global Future Council on Reimagining Aid and by creating a space for dialogue on the future of multilateralism.
If we take the view that multilateralism is the best instrument we have for meeting global challenges, then it would be vital that UN renovate, refresh and make that machinery as effective and as fit for purpose as it can possibly be.
