{"id":2548,"date":"2026-01-31T14:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/?p=2548"},"modified":"2026-01-31T14:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:45:09","slug":"united-nations-faces-imminent-financial-collapse-without-urgent-action-un-chief-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/2026\/01\/31\/united-nations-faces-imminent-financial-collapse-without-urgent-action-un-chief-says\/","title":{"rendered":"United Nations faces \u2018imminent financial collapse\u2019 without urgent action, UN chief says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"UN
UN Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres is welcomed by Britain\u2019s Prime Minister Keir Starmer to 10 Downing Street, London, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (Henry Nicholls\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By  EDITH M. LEDERER<\/a> Updated 4:04 PM MST, January 30, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNITED NATIONS (AP) \u2014 The United Nations chief is warning that the world body faces \u201cimminent financial collapse\u201d unless its financial rules are overhauled or all 193 member nations pay their dues \u2014 a message likely directed at the United States<\/a> and the billions it owes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to all U.N. member nations obtained Friday by The Associated Press that cash for its regular operating budget could run out by July, which could dramatically affect its operations<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEither all member states honor their obligations to pay in full and on time \u2014 or member states must fundamentally overhaul our financial rules to prevent an imminent financial collapse,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Guterres didn\u2019t name any country in the letter, which was reported earlier by Reuters, the financial crisis comes as the U.S., traditionally the largest donor, has not paid its mandatory dues to the United Nations<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the United Nations has potential but has not lived up to it. His administration has withdrawn from U.N. organizations like the World Health Organization<\/a> and the cultural agency UNESCO<\/a>, while pulling funding from dozens of others<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. now owes $2.196 billion to the U.N.\u2019s regular budget, including $767 million for this year and for prior years, according to U.N. officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. also owes $1.8 billion for the separate budget for the U.N.\u2019s far-flung peacekeeping operations<\/a>, and that also will rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country second on the list for not paying dues is Venezuela, which owes $38 million, the official said. The country, whose economy was struggling<\/a> before the U.S. military raid this month that deposed then-President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, has already lost its right to vote in the General Assembly for being two years in arrears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guterres said the U.N. ended 2025 with a record $1.568 billion in outstanding dues, more than double the amount outstanding at the end of 2024. The U.N. official said the Trump administration did not pay<\/a> any dues last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because so much is owed, the U.N.\u2019s liquidity reserves nearly have been exhausted, Guterres said, and unless payments drastically improve, the U.N. will not be able to fulfill the $3.45 billion regular budget for 2026 approved unanimously in December by the assembly\u2019s 193 members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secretary-general stressed another major problem that he has raised repeatedly: Under U.N. financial rules, the organization is required to pay back unspent money from the regular budget to member states \u2014 even if it hasn\u2019t received that money in payments. He urged U.N. member nations to change the requirement immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI cannot overstate the urgency of the situation we now face,\u201d he said. \u201cWe cannot execute budgets with uncollected funds, nor return funds we never received.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. mission to the U.N. didn\u2019t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

___<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story has been corrected to show that the $2.196 billion that the U.S. owes the U.N. includes this year\u2019s dues of $767 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By  EDITH M. LEDERER Updated 4:04 PM MST, January 30, 2026 UNITED NATIONS (AP) \u2014 The United Nations chief is warning that the world body faces \u201cimminent financial collapse\u201d unless its financial rules are overhauled or all 193 member nations…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2549,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2548\/revisions\/2549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}