Washington, D.C. — Today, Representative John Curtis (R-UT) introduced the Determining Excessive Funding for the United Nations for Dereliction (DEFUND) Act to force the State Department to rank United Nations (UN) agencies on how vital U.S. involvement is to our interests. The introduction of this bill comes on the heels of a probe into employees of the UN’s United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) involvement in the Oct. 7^th attack on Israel resulting in the largest loss of life of Jews since the Holocaust.

“It is clear that many UN programs work against U.S. interests, and reports are now showing some explicitly fund terrorism,” said Rep. Curtis. “This bill will get our priorities on the record and ensure taxpayer dollars flow only to programs that are necessary for the security of the United States.”

During the past four years, countless examples have surfaced of mishaps from international agencies. The WHO failed its core mission to prevent global pandemics because it ignored Taiwan’s warnings, the UNHRC serves as a forum for human right abusing countries to bash the U.S. and Israel, and UNRWA admits that its employees participated in and celebrated the October 7^th massacres.

The creation of a ranking based on U.S. interests would help Congress in understanding which U.N. organizations are worth continued funding and which are worthy of complete defunding or significant cuts. If U.S. interests are harmed, negligible, or overridden by more urgent priorities, the United States should terminate its support and membership. Forcing the Department of State to rank the organizations prevents it from making the argument that all are equally important. 

Some aspects of American involvement in the United Nations help secure American interests—such as our veto power on the Security Council. Other aspects only waste U.S. taxpayer money while attacking our allies and legitimizing the world’s worst dictators.

BACKGROUND:

Around 10% of all [UNRWA] Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The same reports show nearly half of all UNRWA employees had close relatives with official ties to militant groups, predominantly Hamas.

The total U.S. bill for 2022 was an eye-popping $18,095,456,587—33.6 percent of total government donations—to the United Nations. 

The UN runs a variety of organizations and agencies that work on issues ranging from preserving world heritage sites, arranging peacekeeping missions, and organizing international standards. Some of these are clearly more important than others.

The U.S., Russia, China, France, and UK are all permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto power over UN Security Council resolutions. This veto power is clearly important to the U.S. and our allies.

Other UN organizations range from laudable to pointless to Orwellian distortions or right and wrong that the U.S. should not legitimize. These are not all equally deserving of U.S. taxpayer support. Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Cuba, and Russia have been elected as members of the U.N. Human Rights Council, with Iran set to chairing the council’s Social Forum; Iran and North Korea are presiding over the U.N. Conference on Disarmament; the WHO covered up the outbreak of COVID due to its significant Chinese influence; sexual abuse is rampant among U.N “peacekeeping” forces.

To read the bill, click HERE.

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