Trump refuses to discuss the US' unpaid UN membership fees, claiming that it's easy to get other countries to pay

US President Trump has proclaimed himself as the "savior" of the UN, which is on the verge of financial collapse. He claims that he has the means to make the member states that are in arrears with UN dues pay their outstanding amounts. However, he has refused to respond to whether the US will pay the outstanding UN dues.

On Sunday (February 1st), Trump gave a brief phone interview to the US political news website Politico. During the call, he said he was unaware of the situation where the US was in arrears on its UN membership fees. However, he was confident that he could "easily solve this problem", and that as long as the UN made a request, he could "make other countries pay".

"I will make sure that everyone pays off their debts, just as I made sure that the NATO countries paid off their debts."

Trump said, "All I have to do is call these countries... and within minutes they will send me the checks."

On January 30th, the deputy spokesperson of UN Secretary-General Guterres, Hake, said that Guterres has sent letters to all UN member states, warning of the current severe financial situation faced by the UN. Although 150 member states paid their dues in 2025, the total amount of unpaid dues currently stands at 1.56 billion US dollars, which is double that of 2024.

The New York Times reported that a senior UN official warned that if funds run out, the UN might be forced to scale down the size of its various operations or even close its New York headquarters.

Contrary to his usual criticism of the United Nations, Trump said, "This is inappropriate."

Trump said: "The United Nations will not leave New York or the United States. Because the United Nations has tremendous potential."

The United Nations refused to respond to Trump's remarks on Sunday.