Exclusive: US aims to thwart Palestine's UN recognition bid

The Trump administration has urged foreign governments to reject a Palestinian bid for the 2026-2027 presidency of the U.N. General Assembly, warning it would undermine efforts to pursue peace in the Middle East and risk sharp congressional cuts in U.S. funding for the United Nations, according to three well-placed diplomatic sources. In recent weeks, U.S. diplomats have delivered formal diplomatic messages — known as démarches — in foreign capitals, expressing strong opposition to the Palestinians’ campaign to lead the world’s largest representative body, composed of 193 member states. The move comes as the White House on Friday proposed draconian cuts in U.N. spending, eliminating billions of dollars in assessed U.S. contributions to peacekeeping and proposing a pause on most assessed and voluntary contributions to the U.N. and other international agencies in 2026. In all, the cuts would amount to an 84% reduction of U.S. foreign aid, including about 87% of spending on U.N. programs. The budget proposal — which requires congressional approval — also envisions the establishment of a $2.9 billion discretionary fund, called the America First Opportunity Fund, that President Donald Trump could use to provide some funding to select international entities and key U.S. allies. It remains unclear what impact the U.S. outreach will have at the U.N., where the vast majority of member states already recognize the state of Palestine. Israel’s siege of Gaza and its expansion of military and settlement activities in the West Bank have only strengthened the case for supporting Palestinian statehood, according to some observers. “The U.S. is the only player outside of Israel that is laying the groundwork for the annexation that appears to be looming,” Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told Devex. “Unfortunately, it’s exactly that prospect that is most motivating greater recognition of the Palestinian role internationally, which, you know, predicates their independence.” The U.N., meanwhile, has undertaken a series of reform initiatives aimed at staving off U.S. retreat from the multilateral system. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres established a task force led by U.N. Under-Secretary-General Guy Ryder to propose specific reforms aimed at lowering costs, consolidating U.N. offices, eliminating duplicative mandates, and reducing the overall size of the U.N. and its myriad agencies. A confidential task force memo, which has been widely leaked, proposed moving many New York and Geneva staff to lower-cost locations closer to the country’s U.N. services, and to dramatically reduce the number of U.N. agencies and senior staff. For instance, it proposes folding peacekeeping and political affairs departments into a newly established Department of Political Affairs and Peace Operations, integrating UNAIDS into the World Health Organization, and merging UN Women and the U.N. Population Fund. It also recommends creating a U.N. Sustainable Development Department to coordinate the activities of more than a dozen U.N. agencies, from the U.N. Development Programme to UNICEF, with the goal of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, which include the elimination of extreme poverty and the reduction of global inequality, by the year 2030. Many of the task force’s most far-reaching reform initiatives would require the approval of U.N. member states, which have traditionally served as obstacles to some of the most ambitious past reform proposals. It would also raise the possibility of breaking the U.N.’s five veto-wielding powers — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States — monopolies on the top U.N. cabinet positions overseeing peacekeeping, political and humanitarian affairs, development, and counterterrorism. But the controversy over Palestine’s bid for the top U.N. post risks overshadowing those reform efforts. There are U.S. laws on the books that would trigger a withdrawal of U.S. funding to U.N. agencies in the event that it recognizes Palestine as a full-fledged member state. If successful, the Palestinian campaign would move “perilously close to triggering existing U.S. law and at a minimum trigger congressional reaction,” according to one U.N. insider. “It would be a massive debacle.” The insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. lobbying campaign was a reassuring sign that the administration is taking the Palestinian campaign seriously. But the source added that if the White House cuts most funding to the U.N., it would render the threat of congressional action something of “an empty threat.” The U.S. has expressed concern that the election of the Palestinian candidate, Riyad Mansour, would exacerbate divisions in the U.N. and undermine ongoing diplomatic efforts to secure an “equitable and enduring resolution” of Israeli-Palestinian tensions, according to notes of the démarche. The U.S. also questioned Mansour’s ability to carry out his duties with the impartiality, fairness, and integrity required of a U.N. General Assembly president, citing what they claimed was his “anti-Israel” rhetoric, according to one diplomatic source. And it warned that if Mansour were elected, the Trump administration could not rule out the possibility that Congress would impose “certain statutory measures” impacting U.S. funding to the U.N., the source added. Mansour has received the formal backing of the U.N.’s Arab Group, a coalition of 22 Arab governments, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is composed of six Arab countries that border the Persian Gulf: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. He will run as a candidate for the larger 53-member Asia-Pacific Group, which is set to lead the 81st session of the General Assembly in 2026-2027. But he faces challenges in the group from Cyprus’s state secretary and permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andreas Kakouris, and Bangladesh’s foreign affairs adviser, Touhid Hossain. One U.N. diplomat said that Palestine had the edge at this point and was likely to secure enough votes to win the race. Mansour’s election bid is unprecedented in that Palestine, which has been recognized as a state by 147 nations, is not a full-blown member state of the U.N. In April 2024, the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have granted Palestine — a non-member observer state — U.N. membership. However, a subsequent May 2024 non-binding resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly affirmed that Palestine qualified for U.N. membership and expanded its rights, granting it the authority to speak before the assembly and offer amendments to resolutions. While the May resolution did not extend Palestinian’s the right to vote in the assembly, a subsequent interpretation of the text by Guterres in July 2024 concluded that while Palestine has no right to vote in the General Assembly, “a member of the delegation of the State of Palestine may be elected as President of the General Assembly.” For Trump and his ideological bedfellows, the Palestinian candidacy merely reinforces their long-standing belief that the Palestinians use the U.N. to gain “undeserved legitimacy,” said Ibish. He doubts the Palestinian campaign in the General Assembly can do additional damage. “The antipathy is already at full throttle,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to push the needle, you know, to 11. I think it’s already at 10, and it can’t get worse.”