Is the UN about to be Magaified?

Is the US about to MAGAify the UN?

That is the question that many leading diplomats appear to be asking themselves as they gather in New York for the UN’s 80th anniversary. 

Whilst the theme of this week’s summit is all about emphasising the value of cooperation, there is a startling lack of compelling evidence for this vision, with divisions prevalent amongst major powers and a growing suspicion of institutions particularly as domestic issues take the focus.

Nowhere is this more clear than in the United States. The United States, which hosts the UN and is its largest financial backer, has in recent years under the Trump administration taken a jackhammer to UN institutions, withdrawing from many and cutting $1 billion in funding whilst firing a thousand US experts who helped reinforce UN functions. 

But why has the US done all of this, when as the host country for the UN and its biggest financial backer, it often in the past used the UN as a means of exerting multi-lateral global influence? The answer seems to be that the Trump administration increasingly sees the UN as a bastion for woke gender and racial politics, something that is complete anathema to it and its supporters.

However, despite all of this, the US under Trump appears not to have completely dismissed the UN. US Permanent Representative to the UN, Mike Waltz, recently stated that the President’s vision for the UN involves reforming and refocusing it. With the UN in this line focusing more on preventing and resolving disputes with a new approach to peacekeeping, the UN would also offer more ‘transparency’ about its budget, and its approach to combatting antisemitism-something the Trump administration is convinced is rampant within the institution-and finally abandoning its attempt to radicalise US politics.

This all sounds somewhat valid, but when you dig into the minutiae of the proposals, you discover where the bite lies. The US has a policy strategy aiming at undermining the UN’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy alongside a proposal that would rapidly undermine and reshape practices around asylum and immigration-tying them more closely to the US’s own deport and ask questions later policy. 

Such moves if successful would undermine the UN’s liberal bonafides and potentially give credence to Russia and China’s claims of the UN being nothing more than the United States’ punching bag. Whether they succeed of course depends entirely on the whims of President Trump and where his attention wanders.