US agrees to pay some but not all of its UN peacekeeping bill

Magdalena Del Valle, Bloomberg News on Oct 8, 2025

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The Trump administration agreed to pay about half its $1.4 billion in dues to the U.N. peacekeeping department for 2025, according to the United Nations, but unpaid dues and past arrears mean the organization will need to slash a quarter of troops and personnel worldwide.

The officials, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. will pay $682 million for the year. In addition to the amount it’s not paying for 2025, the U.S. owes $1.58 billion in arrears.

President Donald Trump’s decision appears to make good on an announcement he made in August that he would be slashing more than $800 million from congressional funding designated for peacekeeping in 2024 and 2025. U.N. officials had said the move would endanger operations in places like South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

That means the peacekeeping department will enact a contingency plan to cut about 15% of its budget, according to the officials. The U.N. has been in a full-blown liquidity crisis since January, according to Secretary General Antonio Guterres, prompted in large part by the U.S. refusal to pay what it owes.

The U.S. mission to the U.N. didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Before Wednesday’s announcement, the U.S. had all but stopped paying its bills to the United Nations since Trump took office in January. The financial delinquency tracks with a wider pullback from U.N. institutions such as the Human Rights Council and UNESCO, as well as a refusal to pay the bills with non-U.N. organizations such as NATO.

A chunk of the newly announced funding will go to Haiti, where a U.S.-supported “gang suppression force” was recently approved to replace a Kenyan-led mission that failed to bring peace to the troubled Caribbean nation. The rest, some $600 million, will be spread as needed among other U.N. peacekeeping missions.

The U.S. is responsible for almost 27% of the budget for U.N. Peacekeeping, which was $5.6 billion in the 2024-25 period. The money that the U.S. is withholding is part of its payment obligations as a U.N. member state.

U.N. Peacekeeping is responsible for protecting civilians, implementing peace agreements and supporting post-conflict recovery in vulnerable nations across the globe. Currently, there are 11 peacekeeping operations, including in Lebanon, Cyprus and the Central African Republic.

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