Trump’s man DOGE-ing the UN

Por Sophia Cai — POLITICO – TOP Stories

As President Donald Trump returned to the United Nations this week to deliver a speech attacking the institution’s globalist instincts, one of his ambassadors has been quietly working to reshape it from the inside.

Jeff Bartos, a former Republican Senate candidate from Pennsylvania, said in an interview with West Wing Playbook that he and Jennifer Locetta, U.S. eepresentative for special political affairs in the United Nations, have met with every candidate who’s indicated interest in becoming the next U.N. head after Secretary-General António Guterres’ term ends in December.

The goal, he said, is to find a leader who is focused on reform and willing to continue the administration’s push to streamline the organization.

“We have a responsibility here to make sure the next secretary-general is reform-focused and guides this institution for the next five to 10 years and actually [finishes] what we’ve started over the last year: back to basics, streamlining the organization,” Bartos said.

The Trump administration has so far kept its preferences private in part because publicly backing a candidate could prompt China and Russia — two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — to oppose that person. And Bartos wouldn’t say whether he thought any of those interviewed would fit the role.

Bartos’ role gives him an unusual perch in the vetting process. As the U.S. ambassador for U.N. management and reform, his portfolio includes the organization’s budget, staffing and peacekeeping operations — the very areas Trump wants the next secretary-general to overhaul.

“We have successfully driven the first budget cut — U.N. budget cut — in their entire 80-year history, and we’re incredibly proud of that,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz said on a call with reporters Friday. “Over a billion dollars has now been cut out of the U.N. budget. Three-thousand of their headquarters’ bureaucrats are being trended down, and over 25% of the peacekeepers around the world are being let go and sent home.”

Waltz said the administration was putting the U.N. “on a diet,” making it “leaner, and back to basics, focused on peace and security.”

The figures reflect cuts to both the U.N.’s regular and peacekeeping budgets. The General Assembly approved a 2026 regular budget of about $3.45 billion, down from roughly $3.72 billion in 2025. The peacekeeping budget was cut by an additional $600 million, according to Waltz, including cuts of thousands of positions in New York and a roughly 25% reduction in peacekeeping personnel, Waltz said. The 2026 regular budget was approximately $265 million below the secretary-general’s initial proposal.

Bartos said the United States is scrutinizing the three African missions that together account for roughly three-fifths of the peacekeeping budget: the U.N. Mission in South Sudan, the mission in the Central African Republic and the mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He pointed to South Sudan as an example of how the administration wants to approach peacekeeping. After the United States led negotiations over the mission’s mandate, the Security Council shaved $80 million off of its budget, Bartos said.

“That’s just good practice,” Bartos said. “Instead of these endless renewals of mandates, which I think we’ve seen for too long, you’re seeing U.S. leadership brought to bear to drive better results and more focus in missions.”

Bartos described the Central African Republic mission, known as MINUSCA, as an example of a peacekeeping operation with strong leadership and a clear exit strategy. In Congo, he praised the leadership of the mission chief and his team, even as fighting continues in the country’s east.

He declined to label any of the missions a failure, saying his focus is on whether their budgets and mandates are producing measurable results.

In a statement, a U.N. spokesperson, Farhan Aziz Haq, defended the work of the world body.

“The UN continues to work with Member States to ensure that our peacekeepers can fulfill the mandates given to them by the UN Security Council as effectively and efficiently as possible,” Haq said. “UN peacekeeping has been crucial to the security of people around the world and we strive to ensure that it is cost effective.”

The administration is also pursuing changes to U.N. compensation and benefits. Bartos said U.N. employees are paid, on average, 117% of comparable U.S. civil servants and criticized what he called an overly generous benefits structure.

“There are too many benefits, they’re too expensive,” Bartos said.

He also pointed to the U.N.’s $112 billion pension plan, saying the organization contributes 16% of every employee’s pay to the system. The United States is pushing the pension board to study a hybrid model combining a traditional pension with a defined-contribution plan similar to a 401(k), which Bartos said could save more than $1 billion annually.

Bartos said the United States will also seek additional savings in the next regular budget, which the U.N. secretary-general has proposed cutting by about 5%.

Bartos’ path to the U.N. is unconventional. Bartos is a Philadelphia-area businessperson and attorney who was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania in 2018. In 2022, he ran for the Republican nomination for Senate in a crowded primary that included Mehmet Oz, Dave McCormick and Kathy Barnette. Bartos finished fifth, receiving 4.9% of the vote, according to the certified recount results.

After the primary, Bartos chaired Oz’s general-election campaign. He later helped McCormick and Trump win Pennsylvania in 2024 before joining the administration.

Trump nominated Bartos to the U.N. post, and the Senate confirmed him in September of last year.

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Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories