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Trump administration dives into U.N. Secretary General race

Signs of the Times, Karen DeYoung, The Washington Post, Mon, 24 Aug 2026 

The next leader of the United Nations could, for the first time, be a woman. But first she’ll need Trump’s approval.

This year, for the first time in its 80-year history, the United Nations may select a woman to serve as its secretary general. Of the eight candidates nominated so far for the position, five are women, and many U.N. members argue that it’s finally their turn.

But as the U.N. Security Council undertakes its months-long, ultrasecret selection process, hopefully making its choice before Portugal’s António Guterres reaches the end of his five-year term on Dec. 31, other factors are at play beyond gender.

The Trump administration, which has veto power on the council, is working overtime to ensure that the new leadership is in sync with its plans to continue cutting the U.N. budget and workforce. Beyond long-standing funding concerns, it wants to effect fundamental change across the global body, in particular the way it handles the three “pillars” of its charter — peace and security, development, and human rights — and adherence to international law.

“This institution desperately needs strong, effective leadership,” Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told a Senate hearing this spring. U.S. priorities, he said, were “reform, reform, reform … and getting back to basics ​on peace and security will be ​at the top of ⁠our criteria.”

This summer, high-level officials at the U.S. mission to U.N. headquarters in New York have conducted multiple interviews with six of the candidates — two new ones emerged this month, and there may be further nominations before any final decision.

President Donald Trump has not commented on a report last month by the New York Post that he wants Gianni Infantino, head of the world soccer federation FIFA, to have the job. But “there are tons of rumors about an October surprise,” said a longtime U.N. insider, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the secret voting process.

“They have until the end of December,” said a second person familiar with the process and its backroom machinations. The question, this person said:

“Does [Trump] come in at some point — everybody at the U.N. is waiting for this — and say, ‘I want … Infantino, [or] his daughter [or son-in-law Jared] Kushner.’ … Then the whole process gets set back as somebody figures out the politics of backing him down.”

One senior U.S. official acknowledged deep U.S. involvement but said that the interviews were more akin to “conversations,” adding that the administration does not have a preferred candidate among current or possible future nominees.

“We want the best candidate. Period. We’re not focused on anything that would limit the most talented people around the globe from putting their names up.”

While they may differ on how it is done, few member states disagree with the need for reform. Peter Yeo, senior vice president of the U.N. Foundation and a longtime expert on U.S.-U.N. relations, said:

“This particular race is different from all the others. Fundamental questions are being asked about the future role of the organization … what the U.N. does, what is its mandate, what programs it should be running, how it should be financed. It’s not just the United States asking.”

Trump, who has denigrated a host of international organizations, has sharply criticized the U.N. as ineffective, wasteful and out of tune with U.S. priorities. He has canceled U.S. membership and voluntary donations to many of its agencies — most prominently the World Health Organization — while U.S. humanitarian and development aid has been shunted away from international programs toward bilateral assistance that reflects “America First” priorities.

Annual member dues to the regular U.N. budget are assessed according to a formula that includes gross national product and population, and the U.S. has long been the biggest contributor. But until recently, the Trump administration had paid nothing while it pushed for severe budget cuts and organizational changes.

Early this year, as Guterres warned that the U.N. faced “imminent financial collapse,” the administration paid about $160 million of last year’s more than $800 million assessment, according to the U.S. official. On Aug. 4, following staff and budget cuts in which the U.S. was heavily involved, the administration notified Congress that it intends to pay $725 million of this year’s dues.

Technically, the secretary general is elected by a majority vote in the 193-member General Assembly. But only once, in 1950, has there been more than one person on the ballot delivered to the assembly by the 15-member Security Council. The council’s approval requires at least nine votes, though each of the five permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — has veto power.

It has long been agreed that the secretary general should not be from one of the permanent five members, who already wield tremendous power with their vetoes, and that the position will rotate among different regions of the world. Since the U.N. was founded in 1945, some of the nine who have held the office, including Guterres, have served two consecutive five-year terms. Africa, Asia and Europe have had multiple chances, but only one secretary general has come from Latin America — Peru’s Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, who served from 1982 to 1991.

All five of the currently nominated women are Latin Americans, as is one of the three men. The other two men are from Africa. All are former U.N. or national officials in their home governments, or both, and most have campaigned strenuously for the job.

Beginning this summer, council members are periodically holding secret straw votes in which they “encourage,” “discourage” or offer no opinion on each candidate. In officially unreleased but widely disseminated results of the first vote, held in late July, the top three were Rebeca Grynspan, former Costa Rican vice president and former head of U.N. Trade and Development; Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, former foreign minister and current U.N. ambassador from Guyana; and Rafael Mariano Grossi, an Argentine diplomat who has been director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency since 2019.

In a second straw vote Friday, all three were reportedly still out in front, but no one looked like a runaway……………………………………………………… https://www.sott.net/article/508526-Trump-administration-dives-into-U-N-Secretary-General-race

September 25, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment

Funding crisis leaves UN nuclear watchdog begging for resources

September 17, 2026, https://pearlsandirritations.com/post/2026/09/funding-crisis-leaves-un-nuclear-watchdog-begging-for-resources/

The International Atomic Energy Agency faces a serious funding crisis as major contributors delay payments, putting nuclear safeguards, safety and security work at risk and exposing deeper problems with how the agency is financed.

The 180-plus members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are meeting this month in Vienna amidst an ongoing financial crisis. In June, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reported that if significant payments were not received soon, the agency would not be able to meet its legal obligations.

The cause? The failure of the wealthiest members to pay their assessed dues on time. Between them the United States and China account for 45 per cent of the IAEA’s annual budget – roughly US$250 million. Both have increasingly failed to make timely payments.

At risk are services vital to international peace and security.

The IAEA is best known for its nuclear safeguards system, underpinning the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The key is on-site verification inspections and assessments in some 180 countries to confirm they are keeping their commitments not to acquire nuclear weapons. Some 800 highly trained IAEA inspectors conduct almost 3,000 in-field verification activities each year.

A major focus of safeguards attention has been Iran’s nuclear activities. The bombing of Iran’s facilities in June 2025 forced IAEA inspectors to leave the country. Nevertheless, safeguards inspections continue at the Russian-supplied Bushehr nuclear power plant, and inspectors remain ready to return to other facilities as soon as conditions allow.

Other vital responsibilities of the IAEA include the promotion of a strong global framework for nuclear safety and nuclear security.

Since the Chernobyl disaster, the international community has recognised that nuclear safety is a global challenge that requires international tools – many of which are provided by the IAEA. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, IAEA staff have been stationed at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant under conditions of great risk, producing over 360 public reports on developments there.

And in our immediate region, the IAEA has actively monitored the discharge into the sea of the water used to cool the Fukushima reactors damaged in the 2011 tragedy, confirming that these discharges remain well below regulatory and operational limits.

Beyond its regulatory and standard-setting roles, the IAEA helps developing countries harness nuclear technologies for national development – especially in medicine but also in agriculture and industry.

The funding of international organisations has long been a contentious issue. From the 1960s, a shadowy alliance of the major (Western) contributors known as the Geneva Group consulted to restrain the costs associated with the rapid expansion of membership in these organisations.

In the 1980s, the Geneva Group started to impose a policy of ‘zero real growth’ in the United Nations system, regardless of their roles and relative importance. This later evolved into a policy of ‘zero nominal growth’, effectively requiring budgets to be cut each year to offset inflation.

Consequently, funds were being cut just as demands for services were increasing, driven by the growth in IAEA membership and the emergence of new and increasingly complex, resource-intensive inspection challenges, such as the inspections in Iraq and the safeguarding of Iran’s nuclear programme.

To meet these demands, the IAEA increased its reliance on voluntary contributions. For some governments, the insistence on reduced budgets was a policy pursued regardless of the real costs involved: where they considered particular programmes vital, they would provide voluntary payments outside the regular budget, known as ’extrabudgetary funding’. The United States has long been a major contributor of extrabudgetary funding, and China has also become a significant player.

Extrabudgetary funding requires careful management lest it distort the balance of interests among IAEA member states. It can also dilute the neutral international character of the IAEA’s activities and risk giving funding providers disproportionate influence over the organisation’s priorities and activities.

A first and immediate step is for the major contributors to resume making full and timely payments. Their current delays amount to bullying behaviour and risk unduly influencing the IAEA’s programs and priorities.

The only sanction against non-payment is the provision in the IAEA statutes that members more than two years in arrears will lose their right to vote in the IAEA’s governing bodies. To date, this provision has been sufficient to deter prolonged financial default. But financial uncertainty carries its own cost, including the cost of rescheduling planned activities, or, in some cases, not delivering them at all.

Other significant contributors, including those in our region – Japan, Korea and Australia – pay their contributions in full and on time, only to see their good international citizenship exploited by the two dominant players.

The Asia-Pacific is now the leading region in global nuclear affairs and should therefore take a lead in calling for a return to full and timely payments to the IAEA.

More broadly, it is time to reconsider the role of the Geneva Group. Zero-growth policies were blunt instruments which achieved a very limited purpose. A more nuanced approach is needed, one that allows differentiation among agencies as they evolve to meet changing global challenges and respond to the changing expectations and needs of the international community.

Over its 70 years of history, the IAEA has earned an enviable record as the world’s highly professional and respected nuclear watchdog. It has also proven its capacity to adapt to new demands, from the challenges posed by would-be nuclear proliferators to those arising from nuclear safety and security.

It is in our collective interests to ensure that the IAEA’s funding needs are assessed on their merits and that all its members meet their fair share of the costs in full and on time.

September 24, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international | Leave a comment