UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations and other international organizations are bracing for four more years of Donald Trump, who famously tweeted before becoming president the first time that the 193-member UN was “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.”
In his first term, Trump suspended funding for the UN health and family planning agencies, withdrew from its cultural organization and top human rights body, and jacked up tariffs on China and even longtime US allies by flaunting the World Trade Organization’s rulebook. The United States is the biggest single donor to the United Nations, paying 22 percent of its regular budget.
Trump’s take this time on the world body began taking shape this week with his choice of Republican Rep. Elize Stefanik of New York for US ambassador to the UN.
Stefanik, the fourth-ranking House member, called last month for a “complete reassessment” of US funding for the United Nations and urged a halt to support for its agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA. President Joe Biden paused the funding after UNRWA fired several staffers in Gaza suspected of taking part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack led by Hamas.
Here’s a look at what Trump 2.0 could mean for global organizations:
‘A theater’ for a conservative agenda
Speculation about Trump’s future policies has already become a parlor game among wags in Washington and beyond, and reading the signals on issues important to the UN isn’t always easy.
For example, Trump once called climate change a hoax and has supported the fossil fuel industry but has sidled up to the environmentally minded Elon Musk. His first administration funded breakneck efforts to find a COVID-19 vaccine, but he has allied with anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“The funny thing is that Trump does not really have a fixed view of the UN,” said Richard Gowan, UN director for the International Crisis Group think tank.
Gowan expects that Trump won’t view the world body “as a place to transact serious political business but will instead exploit it as a theater to pursue a conservative global social agenda.”
There are clues from his first term. Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 Paris climate accord and is likely to do it again after President Joe Biden rejoined.
Trump also had the US leave the cultural and educational agency UNESCO and the UN-backed Human Rights Council, claiming they were biased against Israel. Biden went back to both before recently opting not to seek a second consecutive term on the council.
Trump cut funding for the UN population agency for reproductive health services, claiming it was funding abortions. UNFPA says it doesn’t take a position on abortion rights, and the US rejoined.
He had no interest in multilateralism — countries working together to address global challenges — in his first term. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls it “the cornerstone” of the United Nations.
A new ‘Cold War’ world?
The world is a different place than when Trump bellowed “America First” while taking office in 2017: Wars have broken out in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. North Korea’s nuclear arsenal has grown, and so have fears about Iran’s rapidly advancing atomic program.
The UN Security Council — more deeply divided among its veto-wielding permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the US — has made no progress in resolving those issues. Respect for international law in war zones and hotspots worldwide is in shreds.
“It’s really back to Cold War days,” said John Bolton, a former national security adviser at Trump’s White House.
He said Russia and China are “flying cover” for countries like Iran, which has stirred instability in the Middle East, and North Korea, which has helped Russia in its war in Ukraine. There’s little chance of deals on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or resolving conflicts involving Russia or China at the council, he said.
Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, expects Stefanik will have a “tougher time” because of the range of issues facing the Security Council.
“What had been fairly sleepy during the first Trump term is not going to be sleepy at all in the second Trump term,” he said.
The Security Council has been impotent on Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 invasion because of Russia’s veto power. And it has failed to adopt a resolution with teeth demanding a ceasefire in Gaza because of US support for Israel.
The Crisis Group’s Gowan said Republicans in Congress are “furious” about UN criticisms of Israeli policies in Gaza and he expects them to urge Trump to “impose severe budget cuts on the UN, and he will do so to satisfy his base.”
Possible impact on UN work
The day-to-day aid work of global institutions also faces uncertainty.
In Geneva, home to many UN organizations focusing on issues like human rights, migration, telecommunications and weather, some diplomats advise wait-and-see caution and say Trump generally maintained humanitarian aid funding in his first term.
Trade was a different matter. Trump bypassed World Trade Organization rules, imposing tariffs on steel and other goods from allies and rivals alike. Making good on his new threats, like imposing 60 percent tariffs on goods from China, could upend global trade.
Other ideological standoffs could await, though the international architecture has some built-in protections and momentum.
In a veiled reference to Trump’s victory at the UN climate conference in Azerbaijan, Guterres said the “clean energy revolution is here. No group, no business, no government can stop it.”
Allison Chatrchyan, a climate change researcher at the AI-Climate Institute at Cornell University, said global progress in addressing climate change “has been plodding along slowly” thanks to the Paris accord and the UN convention on climate change, but Trump’s election “will certainly create a sonic wave through the system.”
“It is highly likely that President Trump will again pull the United States out of the Paris agreement,” though it could only take place after a year under the treaty’s rules, wrote Chatrchyan in an email. “United States leadership, which is sorely needed, will dissipate.”
During COVID-19, when millions of people worldwide were getting sick and dying, Trump lambasted the World Health Organization and suspended funding.
Trump’s second term won’t necessarily resemble the first, said Gian Luca Burci, a former WHO legal counsel. “It may be more extreme, but it may be also more strategic because Trump has learned the system he didn’t really know in the first term.”
If the US leaves WHO, that “opens the whole Pandora’s box, — by stripping the agency of both funding and needed technical expertise — said Burci, a visiting professor of international law at Geneva’s Graduate Institute. “The whole organization is holding its breath — for many reasons.”
But both Gowan and Bolton agree there is one UN event Trump is unlikely to miss: the annual gathering of world leaders at the General Assembly, where he has reveled in the global spotlight.
The United Nations faces uncertainty as Trump returns to US presidency
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The United Nations faces uncertainty as Trump returns to US presidency
- In his first term, Trump suspended funding for the UN health and family planning agencies, withdrew from its cultural organization and top human rights body, and flaunted the WTO’s rulebook
Top Philippine senator to seek dismissal of Duterte impeachment case
- Resolution was drafted by Senator Ronald dela Rosa, a staunch ally of Duterte and a former police chief under her father’s 2016-2022 presidency
- The Senate’s current session ends next week, which the draft resolution said was insufficient time to act on the impeachment case
Sara Duterte faces a lifetime ban from office if convicted in a Senate trial. She has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The resolution was drafted, according to his office, by Senator Ronald dela Rosa, a staunch ally of Duterte and a former police chief under her father’s 2016-2022 presidency. A Senate source, who declined to be identified, confirmed the draft was circulating among senators.
The draft seen by Reuters says the Senate did not act promptly to begin proceedings upon receipt of the impeachment article, so the case was “de facto dismissed” as 100 days had already passed.
It was not immediately clear when the resolution would be filed or how much support it would have. If it succeeds, it could intensify an escalating battle for power between Marcos and former ally Duterte ahead of a 2028 presidential election that she is widely expected to contest, with Marcos limited to a single term and unable to run again.
At stake is the legacy and future influence of Marcos, who has waged a decades-long campaign to defend his family’s name from what he says are false historical narratives of plunder and brutality during the 1970s and 1980s rule of his strongman father and namesake. The effort to dismiss the case comes after a stronger-than-expected showing for allies of Duterte in last month’s midterm elections, demonstrating her popularity and unswerving influence, despite the row with Marcos, humiliating legislative enquiries and the arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court of her father in March.
The Senate’s current session ends next week, which the draft resolution said was insufficient time to act on the impeachment case. A new Senate will convene in late July.
“The matter cannot cross over to the incoming 20th Congress,” the draft said.
Marcos has called for unity among all political camps and has distanced himself from the impeachment of Duterte, which was backed overwhelmingly by a lower house controlled by his allies. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dela Rosa’s proposed resolution.
Ukraine invited to Hague NATO summit, Zelensky attendance unclear
- NATO chief: ‘I invited Ukraine to the summit. We will as soon as possible bring out the program with more details’
BRUSSELS: Ukraine has been invited to a NATO summit in The Hague this month, Mark Rutte, the military bloc’s chief, said on Wednesday, without specifying whether this meant Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky would attend.
“I invited Ukraine to the summit. We will as soon as possible bring out the program with more details,” Rutte told reporters before a meeting with defense ministers in Brussels.
Asked whether Zelensky personally had been invited, Rutte only said the program would be published in due course.
India’s Modi to visit Kashmir to unveil strategic railway
- The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir is at the center of a bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan
- Indian leader set to visit on Friday to open the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-meter-long steel and concrete span that connects two mountains
SRINAGAR, India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to make his first visit to contested Kashmir since a conflict between India and Pakistan last month, inaugurating a strategic railway to the mountainous region, his office said Wednesday.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir is at the center of a bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan, divided between them since independence from British rule in 1947.
Modi is set to visit on Friday to open the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-meter-long (4,314-foot-long) steel and concrete span that connects two mountains with an arch 359 meters above the river below.
“The project establishes all-weather, seamless rail connectivity between the Kashmir Valley and the rest of the country,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.
Modi is expected to flag off a special train.
Last month, nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought an intense four-day conflict, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10.
More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire on both sides.
The conflict was triggered by an April 22 attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing – a charge Islamabad denies.
Rebel groups in Indian-run Kashmir have waged a 35-year-long insurgency demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan.
The 272-kilometer (169-mile) Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway – with 36 tunnels and 943 bridges – has been constructed “aiming to transform regional mobility and driving socio-economic integration,” the statement added.
Its dramatic centerpiece is the Chenab Bridge, which India calls the “world’s highest railway arch bridge.”
While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records confirmed that Chenab trumps the previous highest railway bridge, the Najiehe in China.
Indian Railways calls the $24-million bridge “arguably the biggest civil engineering challenge faced by any railway project in India in recent history.”
The bridge will facilitate the movement of people and goods – as well as troops – that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and air.
The train line could slash travel time between the town of Katra and Srinagar, the region’s key city, by half, taking around three hours.
The bridge will also revolutionize logistics in Ladakh, the icy region in India bordering China.
India and China, the world’s two most populous nations, are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia.
Their troops clashed in 2020, killing at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers, and forces from both sides today face off across contested high-altitude borderlands.
The railway begins in the garrison city of Udhampur, headquarters of the army’s northern command, and runs north to Srinagar.
Trump administration rescinds Biden-era guidance on emergency abortions
- The Biden-era memo was issued in July 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutionally enshrined right to abortion
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has revoked a Biden-era health guideline that protected emergency abortions when medically required, even in states that ban the procedure.
The Biden-era memo was issued in July 2022, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutionally enshrined right to abortion.
As health providers suddenly found themselves embroiled in legal uncertainty over abortion, the memo provided an interpretation of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), arguing it supersedes state abortion laws when needed to stabilize a pregnant patient.
The directive was fiercely contested by anti-abortion advocates.
In a letter Tuesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the EMTALA guidance did not reflect the current administration’s policy.
“CMS is rescinding this memo ... effective May 29, 2025, consistent with Administration policy,” it said.
Offering its own interpretation, CMS said EMTALA provides the right for any hospital patient to receive “either stabilizing treatment or an appropriate transfer to another hospital.”
It said the US Health and Human Services would no longer enforce the Biden-era guidance.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute said the Trump administration’s revocation of the EMTALA guidelines showed “callous disregard for the law and people’s lives.”
Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law expert at Georgetown University, wrote in the New York Times that the CMS letter “basically gives a bright green light to hospitals in red states to turn away pregnant women who are in peril.”
According to Guttmacher, 13 US states, mostly in the south and east of the country, have “a total abortion ban” as of May 28.
While these states generally provide narrow exceptions in the event of a threat to the mother’s life, it is unclear what constitutes a life-threatening condition in the eyes of the law.
Since returning to office, US President Donald Trump has taken a series of moves to restrict abortion access.
In his first week back in the White House, Trump revoked two executive orders protecting access to a pill widely used to terminate pregnancies and the ability to travel to states where the procedure is not banned.
Cologne starts its biggest evacuation since 1945 to defuse WWII bombs
- Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany
COLOGNE: More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne’s city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week.
Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany.
Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne’s biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.
Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents from an area within a 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction.
They were found in the Deutz district, just across the Rhine River from Cologne’s historic center.
As well as homes, the area includes 58 hotels, nine schools, several museums and office buildings and the Messe/Deutz train station. It also includes three bridges across the Rhine — among them the heavily used Hohenzollern railway bridge, which leads into Cologne’s central station and is being shut during the defusal work itself. Shipping on the Rhine will also be suspended.
The plan is for the bombs to be defused during the course of the day. When exactly that happens depends on how long it takes for authorities to be sure that everyone is out of the evacuation zone.
