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The State Department declared Saturday that the U.S. is “rejecting the outdated model of multilateralism,” saying the system turned American taxpayers into “the world’s underwriter for a sprawling architecture of global governance.”
Additionally, it said that President Donald Trump’s recent order withdrawing the U.S. from 66 international organizations showed that “the era of writing blank check to international bureaucracies is over.”
The move marks the latest in Trump’s broader “America First” agenda aimed at cutting spending that the administration deems wasteful, ineffective or contrary to U.S. interests.
“What we term the ‘international system’ is now overrun with hundreds of opaque international organizations, many with overlapping mandates, duplicative actions, ineffective outputs, and poor financial and ethical governance,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a memo posted on the State Department’s Substack.
TRUMP ORDERS US WITHDRAWAL FROM 66 ‘WASTEFUL’ GLOBAL ORGANIZATIONS IN SWEEPING ‘AMERICA FIRST’ CRACKDOWN
Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his end-of-year press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohatt/Reuters)
“Even those that once performed useful functions have increasingly become inefficient bureaucracies, platforms for politicized activism or instruments contrary to our nation’s best interests. Not only do these institutions not deliver results, they obstruct action by those who wish to address these problems,” Rubio added.
Rubio did not hold back in his criticism of the organizations, saying that the U.S.’s continued participation “would be an abandonment of our national duty.” Additionally, the secretary emphasized that this did not mean that the U.S. was retreating from global leadership, rather that it was rejecting what the administration sees as an outdated model of multilateralism.
The United Nations Headquarters building in New York City on July 16, 2024. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
On Wednesday, Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the U.S. to withdraw from 66 international organizations, ordering executive departments and agencies to cease participation in and funding of entities the administration says no longer serve U.S. interests.
The memo came just under a year after a Feb. 4, 2025, order that directed Rubio, along with the U.S. representative to the United Nations, to conduct a review of “all international intergovernmental organizations of which the United States is a member and provides any type of funding or other support, and all conventions and treaties to which the United States is a party, to determine which organizations, conventions, and treaties are contrary to the interests of the United States,” according to the White House.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio whispers to President Donald Trump, who is holding the note Rubio handed to him, during a roundtable meeting on Antifa in the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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The findings were presented to the president, who deliberated with his Cabinet before moving forward with the withdrawals.
In the January 2026 memorandum, Trump said Rubio’s findings showed it was “contrary to the interests of the U.S. to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support” to the listed groups.
The U.N.-affiliated organizations included U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and the U.N. Democracy Fund, among others. The non-U.N. groups included the International Solar Alliance and the Global Forum on Migration and Development as well as others.
Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.
