Oversight Field Hearing – Accountability and Reform at the United Nations

The Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs will come to order. Thank you, members. Good morning, Ambassador Waltz, members of the subcommittee, and others who have joined us today for this critically important field hearing on accountability and reform at the United Nations. We are convened here at the United States Mission to the United Nations, overlooking New York City and the UN headquarters, really a fitting vantage point to note that oversight, oversight of American taxpayer dollars is non-negotiable. Over the last three fiscal years, this subcommittee has reduced total spending under our purview by 22 percent. This includes the largest cut in the recent enacted fiscal year 2026 NSRP Appropriations Act, which actually slashed 16 percent, 16 percent by getting rid of inefficient and ineffective programs and refocusing, refocusing funding on programs that are in the direct national security interest of the United States. Funding for the United Nations was not exempt from this very needed review, which resulted in a double-digit cuts and stronger requirements that demand accountability and reform on behalf of the American taxpayer. This hearing today, it's really an opportunity to discuss these measures that go hand in hand with the really outstanding work that Ambassador Waltz and his team have just begun to undertake with really, frankly, notable results. That's what this subcommittee and taxpayers will continue to demand. They demand, we demand results. As President Trump said, the United Nations has great potential. But the President also noted that the UN has not come remotely close to living up to that potential. Anyone who has followed this subcommittee in recent years knows well that I could not agree more. Too often, the UN is in direct odds with the American, with our, with America's interests and makes a mockery of the very things that it claims to support. Look, from Human Rights Council with many of the world's worst offenders, to the World Health Organization's pandering to Communist China during COVID-19 while shutting out Taiwan, to Iran, to Iran winning a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women while its regime brutalized and murdered women on the streets. Well, fortunately, President Trump and Secretary Rubio are ushering in a new era of international accountability, one that demonstrates the glaring inadequacies, unfortunately, of the UN. I believe that the central problem is not the member states, but the UN structure itself. It's embedded in the UN bureaucracy, its reporting practices, its discretionary funding pipelines, and its weak culture of oversight. But for too long, administrations have really relied on UN self-reporting, on vague assurances, and funding without sufficient conditions. That approach has produced a system of increasingly just that's totally comfortable with its bloatness and brokenness. So let me be clear. That era is over. As long as I am chairman of this subcommittee, the subcommittee that provides the US contribution to the UN, this status quo will no longer be tolerated. The American people have every right to expect that institutions funded with their tax dollars will support United States security, respect our allies, and operate with transparency and accountability. Too often, that is not what we see. The enacted fiscal year 2026 NSRP law begins to change that substantially. This subcommittee worked awfully hard to secure tools that match the scale of the problem. The law cuts funding to unaccountable UN bodies and other international organizations. It strengthens withholdings until entities meet standards on oversight, eliminating anti-Israel bias and antisemitism, aid diversion reporting, and terrorist vetting. It shifts key accountability triggers away from UN self-reporting and towards determinations by the Secretary of State of the United States. It strengthens Inspectors General and GAO oversight access. It bars funding for UNRWA and the Commission of Inquiry against Israel. And it provides additional leverage tied to member state conduct, including, including voting patterns at the UN and the treatment of Taiwan. In short, Congress has now provided meaningful, meaningful leverage. And here's the issue. There is no question, absolutely no question in my mind that this administration with this ambassador before us today will use it to the full extent possible. Ambassador, I support an approach that treats United States funding as leverage, not tribute. That means using our contributions, our position, and our voice to press for measurable reform in budget discipline, bureaucracy, political bias, and internal oversight. As the landscape of world power is changing under President Trump's bold leadership, regimes that are hell-bent on the destruction of freedom and basic human dignity, they're on notice now, from Tehran to Caracas, Havana to Moscow. The message is getting through that the old assumptions of impunity will no longer hold. But sadly, we have not had a UN Secretariat that has been a consistent advocate for freedom and human rights in decades. The current UN leadership, like its predecessors, predecessors, is not living up to its job description, let alone the promise of the UN Charter to promote peace and security. Actually, it's a shameful record on issues like on Iran and on Gaza that make it clear that they're not living up to their promise, their commitment. You know, the UN Charter speaks of peace and security. But institutions do not earn credibility by repeating their mission statements. They earn it, they earn it through conduct, through transparency, through neutrality, and demonstrated reform. This is the exception, unfortunately. It's a huge challenge. It's a huge challenge, and it will be a difficult undertaking. Luckily, we have one of our nation's best, brightest, and most tenacious individuals as Ambassador Waltz, again, to get this difficult job done. And yes, it takes a Floridian. Ambassador, thank you for your continued service to our country. You have, you have spent your entire adult life honorably serving this great country of ours. And thank you for your willingness to host the subcommittee here today. I look forward to hearing how you intend to use the leverage that this subcommittee provided, as well as other efforts underway to press for accountability and reform and meaningful results at the United Nations. It's now my privilege to turn to another remarkable Floridian, the ranking member of the full committee, of the, of the subcommittee, Congresswoman Frankel. You're recognized.

Thank you. Thank you. I have to say this is amazing place to be. And thank you, I think these are mostly people who work here, but thank you for your work. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling us together here. I'm Lois Frankel and I also am from Florida. And we have a good bipartisan showing here. You will see, we happen to be very good friends, but I take a little softer, more grandmother approach, common sense approach to problems. So we respectfully agree on a lot of things and respectfully disagree on things. Mr. Waltz, I'm Ambassador Waltz, I should say, also my friend. I don't want to embarrass you or have, I don't want you to lose your reputation, but we were, we worked very closely in Congress on girls' education. That's how we bonded, on the Women, Peace, and Security Caucus which we founded together. And I also am very proud of your assignment. And thank you for your hospitality yesterday at the UN. I, I grew up, I was a carton-carrying, orange carton-carrying UNICEF supporter as a kid. I grew up, I grew up collecting pennies for UNICEF. I lived in New York. I visited the UN many times. It's truly been part of my life history. And to me, it, it remains a unique forum, one of few places where countries from every region come together to address shared challenges. And Ambassador Waltz, I like, I'm going to quote you. You said the one place in the world where everyone comes together to talk. And while there's always room for improvement, it's important to recognize that the United Nations plays a vital role in advancing global stability and supporting US foreign policy priorities. And we've heard a lot and I know we'll hear more about reform and accountability, which is essential to ensuring the UN operates effectively and responsibly. But more importantly, for many of us, sustained engagement is what is so important. We are going to be most effective when we lead, working with partners, impacting decisions making and reinforcing shared values. The negative rhetoric and reducing financial support may have unintended consequences, and I hope we can actually turn that around into a mission success. And I want to use an example. I got to meet Ambassador Bartow last night. Really, I was very, it was a pleasure to meet you and talk to you. He's the Ambassador for Reform, I think that's right. But one of the things we, we talked about was combating anti, anti-Israel bias, which really antisemitism is just, it's all over. It's horrendous now. And I just want to say that if we walk away, if we walked away from the UN, who is left at the table, table to change the culture or this anti-bias? And I could give you, I'm sure, hundreds of more examples. Continued United States participation and investment will help ensure that our priorities, transparency, accountability, and democratic values remain central to the work of the UN system. And that includes support for agencies that deliver tangible results on the ground, for example, providing life-saving assistance to children, delivering vaccines, improving nutrition, expanding access to education, and responding to humanitarian, humanitarian crises. These efforts not only saves lives, but they contribute to long-term stability and development that's best in our interest. And I know my colleagues have heard me say this so many times, but I have a son who is a United States Marine veteran who is in two wars, Mr. Ambassador, Iraq and Afghanistan. I always start to cry when I think about it. Well, he is home safe, but he is going to be the first one to stand up and talk about how important keeping the rest of the world stable is to have to keep our military away. So we have seen a new approach to engagement with the UN entities, including expanded collaboration and humanitarian coordination with mechanisms such as OCHA. And I just wanted to add, I hope education gets to be part of that. I think it may have been left out of early agreements. And I wanted to say this, and with the ambassador sitting, the other ambassador here, because we talked a lot about the reform and efficiency, which I think is very good. But to me, the priority is not reducing the budget. To me, I want to find the ways that we can actually increase the budget in the things that accomplish our mission. And that is what we should always have, a mission. We should have goals in mind, what we want to accomplish, and make sure that the efficiency and the reform coincides with that. And I just want to say that maybe sometimes it works in some situations, but transactional foreign policy to me is bullying and it is not the way to go. All right, that is maybe where we will disagree on some things. The challenges we face today, conflict, public health threats, displacement, emerging technologies do not respect borders, and addressing them effectively requires cooperation and sustained leadership. And I am going to, our ranking member today will be the pit bull on the budget. She does it better than me. You will hear from her in a minute. But we have had an opportunity, everyone here probably, I have met with many UN partners and I would be remiss if I did not note concerns about cuts to U.S. funding and delays in payments to the United Nations system. It is just wrong. Predictable and timely contributions are essential to maintaining our credibility, sustaining critical operations, and ensuring that programs from peacekeeping to humanitarian assistance can function effectively. When payments are delayed or reduced, it creates operational challenges, cedes influence to our adversaries, and complicates our ability to advance U.S. priorities. And so again, as the Trump administration and Mr. Ambassador, as you consider the reforms, it is important to maintain the consistency and reliability that underpin effective leadership. Okay, with that, I am going to yield. I just ran out of paper. And it is really a pleasure to be here, Mr. Ambassador, again. I am wishing you the best on your mission here. And I yield back.

Thank you. Before I recognize the distinguished ranking member of the full committee, I just for the record, I am not the one who called you a pit bull. All right. So pleasure to have Ms. DeLauro. You are recognized, please.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I do not mind the appellation here. So but Ambassador, delighted to be here this morning. And nice digs, very, very nice. And I am sorry I could not be with you last evening. And just on a personal level, when I finished graduate school in international politics, it is where I wanted to come to work. And I came to look for a job at the United Nations. And there is a quota for the number of Americans that can be hired here. And I did not have the experience that reached to the policy levels, so I could not get a job. So I feel as if I have come full circle here in being able to testify here today. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for hosting us today and for your testimony and for answering our questions, which is critical. The United Nations is the single largest, most effective organization devoted to global peace. It is made up of 193 countries. It represents the vast majority of humanity. Its very existence is evidence of our species' ability to cooperate, to deliberate, to reason, and to resolve our disputes peacefully. It is a body dedicated to the prevention and relief of human suffering. It is a moral institution. And each year, the United Nations provides food for more than 120 million hungry people across more than 120 countries and territories. It extends an open hand to more than 139 million refugees fleeing famine, war, and persecution. And it supplies vaccines for 45 percent of the world's children, helping to save three million lives annually. The United States is responsible for roughly $2 billion in contributions to the United Nations each year. However, we seldom meet this obligation. In fact, in 2025, the Trump administration did not provide a single dollar in payments for the United Nations regular budget, contributing to a financial crisis at the UN, prompting the Secretary-General to warn that the institution faces an, and I quote, "financial collapse," end quote, if member nations remain delinquent in their dues. Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in additional funding for President Trump's war in Iran. It is remarkable the distance between how much we are willing to devote to war and how little we can spare for peace. Last year, in a party-line vote, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle rescinded $1 billion in funding for the UN that had just months earlier been approved by the Congress on a bipartisan basis. Because as you know, we cannot pass appropriations bills without there being unanimity, House, Senate, Republicans, and Democrats. A month after that, the White House illegally withheld another $5 billion in foreign aid funding, including more than $900 million in UN payments through what they call a, quote, "pocket rescission." I call it stealing. All of this was done under the pretext that there is not a sufficient benefit to the United States to support foreign aid. That institutions like the UN are not worth investing in. That it somehow does not do enough to advance the cause of global peace and human rights. This is a deeply flawed argument. The United States is a net beneficiary of the United Nations. American businesses were awarded over $2.1 billion in UN contracts in 2024, more than we pay in dues. Our participation in the United Nations affords us immense influence over international affairs, influence which will undoubtedly be claimed by our adversaries should we choose to forfeit it. So our investment in the UN is an investment in our national security. Lastly, there is a sad hypocrisy to the claim that the United Nations has not been effective enough. This administration has chosen to defund the UN, flout its charter, withdraw from many of its initiatives, and begin an open-ended war, a war of choice. This administration is worsening the problems that it blames the UN for being unable to solve. The United States, when we honor our commitments, when we keep our word to the international community, when we stand by our allies, we stand up to our adversaries, we are all better off. We are all safer. We are more prosperous, and yes, we are more free when organizations like the United Nations have our full support. We have a moral obligation as the most powerful nation in the world to promote peace and stability around the globe. And the United Nations is one of the best venues that we have to advance that goal. Ambassador Waltz, I look forward to your testimony and I look forward to our opportunity for questions and answers. Mr. Chairman, thank you and I yield back.

Thank you so much. Green Beret, member of Congress, Florida, Florida's favorite son, Ambassador Waltz. As you know, your written statement will be placed in the record. Please feel free to summarize your testimony. You are now recognized, sir.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Frankel. Thank you for traveling to New York. Thank you to the entire committee. I want to in particular thank both your staff and the great team here of civil servants, foreign service officers, and our ambassadors for helping us put this on. At to your just as an aside to your point, Mr. Chairman, your presence here, and I want to say this to all the committee members, is helping our arguments. It is helping our case across the street to get a UN that is more focused, that is leaner, that is really going back to its post-World War II roots of making sure a conflict like that, a conflict that had something as horrific as the Holocaust, a world at war, nuclear weapons being used for the first and only time in history, that that can never happen again. But it is also sending a message that the Congress is watching closely. I tell my colleagues this in the UN Secretariat and bureaucracy all the time. Do not just listen to me in terms of our dollars being used more efficiently. The United States Congress is watching very closely. We have the entire Western world is in a much more fiscally restrained position. We have debts that are exploding and we also have constituents that are asking tough questions. So I really do appreciate you taking the time out of your schedules here. As I stated in my confirmation hearing, the UN truly does need to get what we are calling back to basics and back to its original mission from its founding, back to maintaining international peace and security. As I have mentioned in my hearing then, the UN's budget in the last 25 years has quadrupled. We have not seen arguably a quadrupling of peace and security around the world commensurate with those hard-earned dollars. So we are pressing it. We are pressing it to streamline its bureaucracy, to eliminate duplication. We have made it clear that we will cease participation in some UN agencies that undermine our sovereignty and cannot be reformed. Earlier this year, President Trump did announce our withdrawal from 66 international organizations. That review is ongoing and from my perspective, let me be clear, the U.S. will not fund organizations that act contrary to our interests. Thanks to the President's leadership, we have made some unprecedented reforms possible. And I just want to walk you through for a moment our progress in 2025 and some of our goals. On budget and staffing cuts, the UN should be doing less and doing it better. Let's get more focused and actually achieve more results. The 2026 UN regular budget was estimated at $3.45 billion. The U.S. funds roughly a fifth of that at $820 million in 2025 alone. Again, I think we need to reduce the UN's size and ensure every taxpayer dollar is spent responsibly. And thanks to the strong efforts by the United States, led by Ambassador Bartos here and his team in what we call the UN's Fifth Committee, which approves its budget, we are working towards a leaner and better prioritized 2026 budget going forward. In December, we led member states to adopt a historic 15 percent cut, $570 million, out of the UN's regular budget. That will eliminate nearly 3,000 headquarters positions, and for our contribution, it will reduce our assessment by $126 million. So just in the six months that we've been here, we will see going forward a $126 million savings to the U.S. taxpayer. We've also pushed for a 25 percent reduction in peacekeeping troops, and I'll talk a bit about other peacekeeping reforms in a moment. That will also save us tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, while enabling what we call here the repatriation, the sending home of poorly performed peacekeeping troops. These outcomes are unprecedented. They've never been seen here in the UN ecosystem, and we've made it clear that future funding will depend on continued progress in efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. On UN compensation and personnel, we're leading reforms to what is often exorbitant compensation and benefits standards that the over 100,000 UN staff receive. The UN pays 17 percent more than U.S. equivalent civil servants, right even though many of them are right here in New York. They also have additional generous benefits packages far exceeding what our great civil servants, both here and abroad, receive. And staff costs alone are 70 percent of their regular budget. So we need to and we are working to bring those compensation and benefits packages back in line with common sense standards. Part of that will be the pension. There's over $100 billion in management in the UN pension with 16 percent. I don't know of an employer or a government out there that contributes 16 percent to their pension. All of these things we're trying to bring back in line. And there's other reforms. For example, the number of interpreters and translators times six for the six UN languages here. Technology can be used, AI can be used, remote translation can be used. That will save a lot of the travel and the conference costs. From an oversight perspective, beyond the salaries and benefits, oversight is essential. We're leading efforts to empower oversight bodies to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and misconduct. On peacekeeping reform, the administration has been clear about focusing on the core mandate of peace and security, excuse me. And we're leading efforts to wind down some of these ineffective and costly peacekeeping missions. Some of them have been around for 30, 50, even 80 years. So it's one thing to stop a conflict, to insert an international force to part ways with warring, with the two sides, or to separate them to create the space for a political resolution. But it can't then become an excuse to not have a political resolution when you have a peacekeeping force, for example, in DRC in Congo at the cost of a billion dollars a year that's been there for 30 years. You can do the math and see how we have a mission creep. So what we're looking to do is to tie as these peacekeeping forces come up for renewal, usually on an annual basis, tie them to a political process and use that as an opportunity to drive efficiencies. Along those lines, again, led by our reform team here that we have an ambassador, someone of ambassador rank dedicated to, this is just as a quick aside, the reimbursement for the equipment that these peacekeeping forces bring. Sometimes at the tunes of 10,000, 18,000 soldiers. It's quite significant. These countries were being reimbursed whether they use the equipment or not. All they had to do is bring it. So there was an obvious incentive in place, and we received this feedback from the field, to not use the equipment very much, don't have a lot of wear and tear, and they still the countries would still receive the same level of reimbursement. We just negotiated new rules, first time ever, that put standards in place that the equipment actually has to be used for the peacekeeping force before you receive reimbursement. These are the kind of common sense reforms that I think are pretty hard to argue with, although we received a lot of pushback because for a lot of these countries, this is a money maker for their ministries of defense. We were able to just get those reforms in. Just a few examples as we look to streamline these mandates, we're also looking to draw some of them down. UNIFIL in Lebanon, we've made it clear hasn't achieved its goals, hasn't lived up to its mandate, and should be drawn down in the next year. We're looking at a strategic review of the peacekeeping force in Western Sahara that has been there for 50 years. We are putting benchmarks in place for the peacekeeping force that's in Southern Sudan. We just oversaw the orderly closure of UNAMI in Iraq, which will reduce costs by $87 million annually. We just pressed for closure of the special political mission in Yemen that'll save $25 million annually. We streamlined missions in Colombia and Haiti, saving approximately $20 million annually. So again, these peacekeeping missions should solve problems, not exist indefinitely. On the humanitarian system, just as a personal aside, as someone who has served across Africa and the Middle East, I can't tell you how many times I would pull up to this tiny ministry in a small country in Africa or in South Asia and you have more UN vehicles in the parking lot than they have in their entire ministry from 16, 17, 18 different agencies, often with overlapping missions, all meaning well, all trying to help. But we've now pooled a lot of our funding that will force these agencies to use the same warehouses, use the same aviation, use the same vehicle fleets, and eliminate a lot of that duplication and waste in their back offices. So moving forward, these reforms have made some significant steps, but we have a long way to go, as I'm sure we'll hear about today, to create a more focused, leaner, and effective UN. We are just getting started. We're building on this momentum heading into the next year with both long overdue changes to the UN's compensation system and pension plan, streamlining these peacekeeping missions, halting waste that undermine the effectiveness. And we'll work with UN leadership to align our reform agenda with the Secretary General's what he calls his UN 80 mandate. We will have a new Secretary General elected this year, and we're having those conversations now with the conversations now with the candidates of what they seek to keep and continue or what new they seek to put in place. But reform is at the top of our list as we meet with some of these candidates. So this is a critical moment with senior leadership transitions approaching here over this next year. We need to have a clear message. We will prioritize qualified Americans, Representative DeLauro, along the lines of what you sought to do so many years ago of having qualified Americans in UN leadership positions, not just here, but across the ecosystem in Geneva, in Vienna, in Nairobi, and other places where you have UN agencies. And I'll just conclude with echoing President Trump's own words as he said most recently at the General Assembly. The UN has tremendous potential. My charge from him is to help it realize that potential. We are dedicated to making the UN live up to that promise, to making the UN great again, if I can say so, our new acronym MUNGA. The UN is the one place where everyone can talk. If we walked away tomorrow, which neither I nor the President are advocating, it would be reinvented somewhere else. I will push hard and continuously to have it right here in the United States where it belongs. And I look forward to keeping open dialogue with your committee. I thank you for the legislation, Chairman, that you pushed through. It is additional arrows in our quiver to help make the UN great again. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Ambassador. Members, I will call on members based on seniority, alternating between each side as we always do. Each member will have five minutes. Let me repeat that. Each member will have five minutes for questions and responses. And I anticipate, and again, the Ambassador who is actually very busy right now, but has been very generous that we will have time for potentially two rounds of questions. Ambassador, in my opening remarks, I briefly described the new and strengthened provision on the UN, the fiscal year, and SFOPS fiscal year 26 bill. I think one of the most common sense requirements is that you, frankly, you be consulted before the Secretary decides if or how much funding may go to different countries. Each country's voting record now at the UN is now on the table when deciding whether to provide funding from U.S. taxpayers. Now, during the short time that you've been here, Ambassador, some progress has already been made in moving countries closer to U.S. positions. We have a long way to go, though. We have a long way to go. Can you describe your efforts on this front? You know, what are the kind of the main obstacles that you run into? And why this tool actually matters, why it can be helpful to you for changing voting behavior at the UN again? Because job number one is the United States national security. So if you could describe a little bit about how that tool is helpful, is it helpful? I'd like to hear it.

No, thank you. It is helpful, Mr. Chairman. You know, look, there is obviously a line of thinking that you provide humanitarian aid for humanitarian purposes, period. But there is also, I would advocate, that the American taxpayer should know that their dollars, particularly development and other types of aid, are in line with our interests and are being used in line with our strategic goals. And if you look at the correlation with the country, many of the countries who receive the most aid often do not stand with us the least in some of these international bodies. So I think it is absolutely fair, and I appreciate the efforts of the committee to look at that correlation and at least have that conversation and certainly to include the U.S. mission to the UN as those decisions are being made down in Washington. So we certainly appreciate that, and we appreciate the effort. On the broader issue, you know, one of the things, and you raised it, the ranking member raised it as well, is the inordinate amount of resolutions that are introduced on Israel. And if you look at the Human Rights Council, there's 171 introduced on Israel compared to 81 on all other nations combined. It is just completely out of whack. And as one of the countries that stands with our steadfast allies, that skews the numbers as well. But I think there's a bigger point here, and this is where we've had some successes on the votes that have really, I think, most recently mattered. If you look at the president's 20-point peace plan on Gaza, where we finally got the ceasefire that so many people were kind of banging the table for and demanding and asking for, well, we got all of our hostages out, the living and deceased, unfortunately, where humanitarian aid is flowing again at acceptable rates, actually now exceeding the president's standards we established, the Board of Peace. We got that through 13 to zero. And when we went to countries and said this is critical, so not only they stood with us. So not only on Gaza, on other issues like the gang suppression force in Haiti, as the gangs have taken over and destabilized Haiti, on a number of other issues, we've actually successfully pulled countries in with us. But that leverage and those demands from Congress are always helpful.

And I would thank you, Ambassador. I would note for the members that I'm actually going to now yield to the ranking member before using all my time. So, lead by example, right?

Can I have some of your time?

You can have the time. No.

Well, I think I'll make an observation. It's very good we have mothers and fathers at this table this morning. It'd be interesting to see the interest in the and grandparents. It'd be interesting to see if the questions are different. Again, thank you for your hospitality, and I'll start off by saying thank you for the fighting antisemitism because it is a worldwide crisis, especially in our country right now. But I do want to say this. You know, I think you, I was going to say hello, I'm here, you sort of been bragging about reductions and so forth, but what was missing to me really was how this correlates to education being expanded for children, more vaccines to save lives, stopping sexual assaults against both men and women, expanding technology so you're also dropping poverty, reducing starvation, illness, and reducing conflicts because really, quite frankly, all these bragging rights mean to me nothing if it cannot be translated into effectively accomplishing a mission. So I think, I think you mentioned this, but there was in the UN regular budget, after the budget cuts and the rescissions, the United States announced a withdrawal from 66 international organizations. I'm not going to name them all, but some of them include the Special Representative on Sexual Violence, Education Cannot Wait, UN Democracy Fund. But my question is this. Could you tell us how, what criteria was used, and was there any interaction with Congress? Because I don't remember anybody talking to me, but that could have been an oversight.

Probably was. Ranking member, if I could answer the first question, then I'll go to the international organizations. When we really pressed the Secretary-General in terms of focusing some of his peacekeeping forces and frankly sending some home, a number of us have both visited Africa or visited with some of these units, and they were telling us, the commander of some of these peacekeeping units were telling us thank you. In one case, the commander was able to send a unit home that had a sad and unacceptable number of SEA allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse. How horrific a society goes through the trauma of conflict and war, then the UN comes in with peacekeepers, and some of these poorly trained or frankly led organizations are actually then abusing the population. So through some of these efficiencies, it gave the commander the leverage to say you're out of here, you're going home, you're being repatriated in that sense. On the humanitarian, where are we actually delivering? On the humanitarian reorg, where the U.S. just sent $2 billion into OCHA, into the coordinator for humanitarian assistance led by a British national, Tom Fletcher, by pooling some of that funding, he's now empowering the regional coordinators and delivering better results. $200 million of that just went to Sudan. And again, it's about eliminating duplication. UNICEF has an education mission, IOM, the International Organization for Migration, has an education mission, UNESCO has an education mission, and in some places, the host nation is saying who do I deal with as we're trying to have a coherent plan? And I can tell you, I can't tell you how many times I've dealt with as a veteran, pulled up to a school that was built by the UN, but the teachers were provided by USAID, but the power was some other UN agency, and it doesn't form a coherent whole. We're working with the UN to reorganize where they have resident coordinators, humanitarian coordinators that have some authority over what happens by all of these various agencies in their country. On the international organization withdrawal, there was a series of criteria. In some cases, can we reform this agency? In some cases, we're aligned with the mission, but there's five organizations within the UN bureaucracy that do the same thing, and we're not going to continue to fund duplication and pulled back. And some we just have, for example, the president made early decisions on WHO, on UNRWA, on the Human Rights Council, to say this is irredeemable. We may disagree on whether that's the case, but we're just not going to participate anymore in an organization that has gone kind of so off the cliff in terms of its mission.

I think my time is up.

Thank you. Mr. Ciscomani, you're recognized, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ambassador Waltz, for coming before us today, for hosting us also yesterday. I'm grateful for your service to our nation in different capacities, in multiple capacities. And I share the chairman's feelings that although his may be a little biased based that they're from Florida, this is coming from an Arizonan that I'm also very proud of the work that you've done and very happy that you're there and grateful for your service again in multiple capacities. You know, a strong and historic focus of this committee has been on ensuring accountability for countries and organizations that benefit from American taxpayer dollars. I say this often in this committee, and this committee more than any other has the utmost responsibility to ensure every single dollar is going to a program that supports our citizens' national security and also opens up economic opportunity for our country. It's not just wealthy American taxpayer dollars that are going out the door. It's also our farmers and our factory workers. That's their money as well. So I stand firm on this responsibility, and we are the most generous country in the world. And it's pretty personal to me. I think you know this. I immigrated to this country when I was 11 years old. I became a U.S. citizen in 2006. Sixteen years later, I was elected to the United States Congress, and now I'm here in this table with my distinguished colleagues and you and this amazing building full of history, holding accountability for our American taxpayer dollars. And it's a great country in so many ways, and I am proud to serve it. So we've seen many UN agencies resisting oversight by the U.S., like the WHO and UNRWA, as it was mentioned before, which is completely unacceptable as we give more money than every Security Council member combined, especially when factoring in the voluntary donations our citizens generally allow. The U.S. has historically been the largest funder of most programs and has not seen the majority of the benefit many times. And the UN has at times actively sided against the national interest of the United States. So every taxpayer dollar going out the door should have a guaranteed return and absolutely should never go to organizations that do not align with our national interest. With that in mind, sir, I'd like to just open up, we talked several times about accountability, so if I can dig in a little bit more on that. The U.S. remains the largest contributor, like I said. Congress passed a number of reforms that align with the vision that the White House has had for conditioning U.S. foreign aid. What specific accountability reforms from the FY26 appropriations bill advocated by the president and this body as well has the UN begun to implement? And if you can talk about specific metrics that are being used to be able to measure that.

Yeah, thank you. A number of these reforms, frankly, we are still pushing into the system. One of the things we would like to see is a more independent UN Office of Inspector General. Right now, it's still, it's an IG, but it ultimately reports back to the entity that it's supposed to be investigating. And so we would like to see more independence there, and that is, Representative Ciscomani, it's one of the things that is top of our list as we engage not only this Secretary-General, but he's on his last year, the new candidates coming in as well. There needs to be a level of independence, and I know that's something that there is language pushing towards. I just want to tell you as well, I mean, we are engaging with the boards and the executive directorates of the various independent agencies. One of the things I know is important to you is there is one agency that focuses on refugees, there's another agency that focuses on migrants, and then there's another agency, the World Food Programme, that focuses on food. Often, if you go to a camp, for example, in the Central African Republic or the Sudan, they're not all wearing different t-shirts. And so we're pressing them, are they meeting the legal status requirements in the conventions for refugee status versus a migrant? Is the shelter being provided by the various agencies sufficient? Is the education that's coming in being effectively coordinated with the host nation? And so, again, a lot of these are just kind of common sense, or should some of these agencies just be combined? Do they need separate headquarters, separate staff, separate boards? And I think there's a real argument that they should be. But it is just like reforming our own federal government. It's a bit of a grind when you also have to take into the account of the Chinese, the Russians, the Europeans, Africans, and others. Final point, the United States pays in our regular budget more than 180 countries combined. There are over 30 countries that pay $35,000 to the UN and receive massive amounts of benefit. So the entire system needs a relook, and that's over the next year something we're dedicated towards.

Thank you, Ambassador. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you. Ranking Member DeLauro, you're recognized.

Thank you very, very much, Mr. Chairman. Just a very quick point because we do have to account for taxpayers' dollars, and accountability is critical. I would just say we ought to take an inward look at this as well as looking at the UN. At this moment, we cannot get an accounting, because I've asked the questions, of what the costs to date are being incurred with the war in Iran. We cannot get any accounting, no specificity, what we will need going forward, to what purpose. All by way of saying that indeed there is a trillion dollars that the Department of Defense has right now, and we don't know where that is going. We need to look at accountability and look inward at where taxpayers' dollars are spending on what we are doing. Migrants are different than refugees. Two different agencies. World Food is different than the other two. They need to have clear lines of demarcation as to whether where they go and what they do. It is not all of the same. U.S. has been the largest contributor to the UN, a quarter of the budget. I don't disagree that we need to have reform, but we're not investing and continued U.S. support to maintain that leverage to secure reforms. And I might add that the administration has opted to illegally, because this committee voted for these funds, illegally rescind the remaining U.S. funding for the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets for fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25. That disregards our international obligations. That does damage our leverage. How does starving the UN of resources from its largest contributor force institution-wide budget cuts, advance the goal of achieving reform? I would need to ask you, Ambassador, what is it going to take and what is the U.S. plan to provide the funds that were appropriated in 2026 to the UN? I just would make this additional point. When we don't keep our promises, then we have others, adversaries who step in. China. China has paid, fully paid its dues. And what they are saying is you can't take the United States seriously. We're called unreliable and painting itself, China, as a bastion of global stability. Let me just get the question out on this one so you can answer them all at once. How do we keep faith with our partners, particularly with developing countries, and keeping them from pivoting to China? I know you care deeply about this issue, and so I think that further isolating the United States puts us in a position of not being able to play on the international stage, and it really poses real threats to our national and economic security.

Thank you for the question, Ranking Member DeLauro. Just a few points. One, our current arrears, or at least a significant portion of it, actually started in 2024. The last year of the Biden administration, they paid half or withheld half of our regular dues.

Please understand, I would have the same question for an official in the Biden administration. This is not about partisanship. This is my own personal view of what we need to be doing with the United Nations. So let's keep the Biden administration out of it. Let's move forward with where we're going.

Okay. Moving forward, we just paid 159 million towards our regular budget. I'm having regular conversations both with OMB and with the State Department on paying, which is a now reduced by 100 million, our dues going forward. But I have to make the distinction on the question of China. They pay very little on voluntary, whether it's to the World Food Programme, UNICEF, IOM, or it's virtually none. So while they often as part of their messaging and their propaganda point to the regular budget, overall contribution, the United States is far and away still even with the cuts the most generous country.

And my time is going to run out and I know the chair is going to demand that we stop. But I will just say that having met with the UNHCR, with the refugee commissioner, we've cut their budget in half. That's dealing with refugees and the displacement of those people with nowhere to go. It is my understanding we do 22 percent of the UN regular budget, 27 percent of the peacekeeping costs. However, we have a statute in the US, 1994, it restricts the United States from paying more than 25 percent for assessed peacekeeping, meaning we are permanently in arrears. So and with that my time is up and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

No, on the contrary, Ranking Member. That's why I did it a little bit shorter because I wanted to make sure that you had a little bit more time. Ambassador, please. Yes.

Mr. Chairman, even with those cuts, Ranking Member, we are still far and away above what the EU and certainly the Chinese or others are contributing.

But this is about the United States and our commitment, our commitment. Yes, ma'am.

Privileged to now recognize the Vice Chairman of the committee, Mr. Edwards.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ambassador, thank you so much. We appreciate the hospitality, the opportunity to be here in this great location to have this conversation. I'm particularly optimistic and encouraged by your opening remarks. It is gratifying to hear that America is finally getting focused with the dollars that we send overseas and that we're insisting that the American taxpayer, the American citizen, really get something from the funds that we've been sending abroad for years. I can't think of a better term to describe it that you referred to a while ago as mission creep, and we appreciate, I appreciate the examples that you gave us there. On January 7th this year, President Trump withdrew or cancelled about 31 agency programs, and I think you used the number 66 in your opening remarks. I'm just curious, can you give us an idea of the actual cost savings, if any, from pulling us out of those programs, or is our assessment in total still the same?

Thank you for the question, Vice Chairman. I'll tell you, I mean just as a quick example of some of the organizations that the department took, and this predated my time here, but took a holistic look at first under the guidance of the executive order, it had never been done before. There wasn't even a clear cataloging of all of the commissions, the boards, the organizations that we contribute to, much less then an evaluation is are those contributions effective, are they in line with American interests, are they actually achieving results that we would expect them to or that our taxpayers would expect them to. So I think the look is certainly healthy, and then what we found was a lot of duplication across the board, and then frankly organizations I think you'd struggle in a town hall back home to explain, like the Pan-American Postal Union or the Tropical Timber Forest Association that we're contributing to, it was very difficult articulate to what gain. So that was kind of this first tranche that we pulled back from. I'll have to take for the record the total amount, but I can tell you it is going to be significant over time in terms of both contracts and assessed dues, it will result in a reduction. But the exact number I'd have to take for the record and come back to you.

Thank you. A follow-up is, and I'm going to jump in the weeds just a bit on some of these programs. A couple really struck me that we would have pulled out for particular reasons. The first is, and I'll ask these together, the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development really shocked me that we may have pulled out of that. Maybe there's an idea to reform it and go back, but given the importance now on rare earth minerals, I would think that we would still have an interest in being involved in that. And then the other one that really jumped off of the page was the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. The reason that one struck me is I had an opportunity to visit Ukraine and hear the stories of the kidnappings by Russia and shipping those children off to basically reform them into Russian society. I would just think that that would be something important to us from a humanitarian standpoint. So any texture you can give me there would be helpful.

So for the individual decisions on individual organizations, again I'll take for the record, it was done last year before I was confirmed. However, I want to make a broader point here and I think it's a really important one. The decision whether to stay engaged in an organization doesn't necessarily reflect the importance of the issue. Of course critical minerals and mining are absolutely important. I worked on it as a member of Congress, these supply chains are critical to our economy. You just saw Secretary Rubio host a global forum at the State Department at the foreign minister and mining minister level and sign into various bilateral and even multilateral compacts to ensure we have access to those supply chains. That could be very distinct, and I will come back to you on the record of whether this organization was actually effective. The title is certainly something and the issue is certainly something that we care very deeply about, but was that organization actually moving the ball? That's something I'll have to come back to you. Same of course we care deeply about children being abused and used in armed conflict. I can tell you, case in point, it is something that UNICEF focuses on quite a bit, that I just met with the head of the ICRC and she has been instrumental and demonstrated strong leadership from a humanitarian standpoint. So again some of the criteria was was this a duplicative office, was it actually as we looked at some metrics having an impact, it may not have and that may have driven the decision to no longer fund it or to prioritize our funding to these other agencies that were frankly doing a better job. So I wouldn't always equate with our participation in an organization about caring about the issue. And then finally, if I can, if you can indulge me for another few seconds, it's also about prioritization. There's organizations like the World Telecommunication Union that is out of Geneva and sets the rules of the road internationally for spectrum, for space, for cables, for telecom, for radio. So sometimes this is about prioritizing and that we now have an American that is leading and is running for reelection, the World Intellectual Property Organization, critical for our entrepreneurs and patent holders. So I don't want to give the committee the impression this is all about just what we're getting out of. It's also about where, and I think Ranking Member Frankel, we had a conversation, where do we need to invest more? And it's also looking at our limited dollars of where we also need to invest. Is the organization being effective was one of our key criteria.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Congresswoman Meng, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, for hosting this hearing and welcome to my home state of New York. Thank you, Ambassador Waltz, for being here and for your service to our country. And I'm sorry I couldn't be there last night, but I've heard from my colleagues and your guests what a hospitable person you and your team were and a meaningful time that they had. It's an honor to be here today at the U.S. Mission to the UN. The UN has deep roots in my home district. Before the General Assembly met here in Manhattan, it met first in Queens at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. And for all the criticism the UN receives, fair and unfair, my constituents understand how important this organization is for global security and stability, women's rights, and humanitarian response. I know this administration is saying its approach to the UN is about reform, and I support reform. We all support reform. And there is important work to be done to modernize the UN, decrease inefficiencies, tackle antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, and make sure our taxpayer dollars are put to maximum impact. Reform is good, but what's happening now is not that. This administration is withholding from the UN $2.2 billion in dues that it owes. It's threatening the core work of UN agencies. It's underfunding diplomatic and humanitarian efforts at a time when countries are slashing investments in healthcare and education in favor of higher military budgets. A hobbled UN does not make the U.S. stronger. It takes us off the world stage. It's America alone and not America first. I will give you credit, Mr. Ambassador, this administration has shown what can be accomplished by U.S. leadership on the world stage with Security Council Resolution 2803. It's a great example. You helped bring the world together to support this 20-point plan, call for the release of the hostages, address the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians in Gaza, and reinforce the need to disarm Hamas. So we need a strong UN and we need U.S. leadership, especially during a time of war. I continue to pray for our service members who are conducting their missions bravely and professionally, and I shed no tears for the brutal Iranian regime. But Congress did not authorize this war. 13 American service members have lost their lives. Hundreds more have been injured. And we still do not have, or Congress does not know, what the strategy is to achieve our goals and avoid a longer war. We need a strategy. And I wanted to follow up in my two minutes left with my question following Ranking Member Frankel and Vice Chair Edwards about the withdrawal from the 66 international organizations. I just wanted to clarify, were you consulted and how was the process going forward to withdraw? I know you've talked about the importance of cost savings, but we also have to balance that with the mission of the UN. And if there are redundancies, how are we going about accomplishing the mission?

Thank you. And I just wanted to note as a New Yorker, we will be hosting at Lehman College up in the Bronx, the UN Security Council on the 80th anniversary of its first meeting, which was actually done up in Lehman College. So one of the things that I've charged the team here is finding ways to continue to integrate with the community here in New York. It has been such a central part of the community here for so long and you have the entire world here. 193 countries that are within a few blocks and these acres dedicated by the Rockefellers on the issue of arrears. We have made payments towards those arrears, but I will tell you the last time we saw real reform like we're seeing now was when then Senator Jesse Helms said, you know what, until I see some of these reforms, you're not going to get our hard-earned taxpayer dollars. And he worked with Joe Biden to come to some agreement on then Senator Biden on how to then distribute those funds back in the late '90s and we got things like an Inspector General's office and other forms of oversight.

Sorry, Ambassador, I only have 10 seconds left.

Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. But to yes, I came in frankly very late in the process after I was confirmed. A lot of the criteria had been established, the studies had occurred on what these organizations do. I will point out it's 66 out of several hundred that we do contribute to and did have a voice late in the process, but did have a voice.

Okay. And I just wanted to especially highlight offices like Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Secretary General on Violence Against Children. Still want to continue the conversation that it's not just about cost savings and reform, but we need to make sure that if we're not leading, how are we approaching these important issues?

If I could just indulge quickly, Mr. Chairman, my understanding is the Bureau for International Organization is coming to brief both your staff and Senate staff in the coming weeks on not only the criteria for this tranche, but the review is ongoing in line with the executive order and how we move forward.

Thank you. And the Ranking Member and I informally discussed that it's okay to give the Vice Chairman and our host a little bit more time. So privilege to have on this committee the Chairman of the Select Committee on the CCP, Mr. Moolenaar, you're recognized, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Ambassador Waltz, thank you again. I want to echo what others have said, thank you for your service. It's great to see you again and we are fortunate to have you in this important role. And appreciate you being here with us today. Under President Trump's leadership and your tenure as Ambassador, the United States has begun pushing long overdue reforms to restore accountability within the UN and your efforts are greatly appreciated. I liked especially what I heard about the back to basics focusing on international peace and security. As you know, earlier this week, the Select Committee on China recently released a report highlighting growing ways the People's Republic of China is working to expand its influence throughout the United Nations. The report outlines several ways the CCP has tried to expand its influence across the UN system through financial contributions and placing PRC officials at key roles in the UN. Wondered if you could share how the United States is working with allies and partners to maintain transparency and the integrity of UN institutions and to not allow it to be leveraged by countries like China, North Korea, Iran, Russia for their own geopolitical agendas.

Oh sure, thank you. And of course, Chairman, the continual support of Taiwan's meaningful participation in international organizations is a key part of our charge here. The world benefits from Taiwan's expertise and resources addressing some of the most critical challenges, particularly with the technology that they bring. And as a general matter and along the lines of what I said to the Chairman, the U.S. will not advocate for partners that don't also share this view in terms of their freedoms. The U.S. opposes, for example, China's intentional misuse and mischaracterization of a resolution that was passed by the General Assembly here, 2758, that is part of China's broader efforts to isolate Taiwan from the international community. We've pushed back on that, I think very forcefully and hopefully effectively. I look forward to seeing and reading through your report that the committee has done. I think it was one of the standing legacies of the former Speaker to put that committee in place and appreciate your leadership on it. And I think it's a real question along the lines of the other members have asked in terms of, we get asked I'm sure by our constituents, why are we participating in the UN? What is it doing for us? And one of the responses I give, aside from we need one place where everyone can come together, is that if we don't participate, someone else, if we don't engage here, it will be invented somewhere else. And we have seen the Chinese very aggressively leverage their funding with demands in terms of positions. And we are, I think where we're most engaged are some of these other international organizations that affect our industry, like I mentioned earlier, the International Maritime Organization, the World Telecommunications Union, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, where we are much more I think strategically and assertively inserting qualified Americans into key leadership positions. Where I think we could do more is at the junior level, at the even at the intern level, where we've seen the PRC push their nationals at increasingly at scale and that we could do more on our side.

And I also appreciated the distinction you made about when there's an important issue like the rare earth minerals, critical minerals, and what Secretary Rubio did convening like-minded countries working together on addressing this issue rather than trying to somehow participate in a forum where you have the entity that's cutting everyone off from the critical minerals or the rare earths somehow leveraging that. And so I commend that. And I wanted to just also ask you, you'd mentioned Haiti a little earlier in your remarks. When I think about Haiti and I think about all they've been through for so many years and the gang, the oppression there, I know there's been work done. What more can the United Nations, what can you do, what can Congress do to help resolve that situation?

Thank you. It's so it's a little bit of a new model in the sense it's a hybrid model, a standing group of partners. So these are countries that are interested in contributing both troops and resources to this new gang suppression force, which has a much more offensive mandate to take these gang leaders like Barbecue and others on. The UN is contributing the logistics to it. And so from again a burden-sharing standpoint, the United States and the prior administration spent over a billion dollars supporting the force there. We'll spend a quarter of that now with the UN taking on that role from a logistics standpoint. And then there's of course a political transition that needs to take place. Our ambassador down there, Henry Wooster, has really led the charge in making sure this current transitional structure can survive until we can get the security in place to have a next round of meaningful elections. It's horrific what's happening to the Haitian people. And again here, you know, we made it clear that this isn't just a US problem or a Haiti problem. It's a Caribbean problem, it's a regional problem because the gangs in Haiti are working with the cartels in Mexico, the gangs and cartels in Venezuela, Cuba, and elsewhere. And they're shipping drugs and thugs and chaos and mayhem not just to the United States, but to Europe and West Africa as well.

Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you. Congresswoman Torres.

Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Ambassador, for your leadership and for your hospitality yesterday. The tour that you provided the members here, truly it shows that we need to invest in infrastructure dollars. And I support the work that you have been doing in bringing some accountability. I also support reform, but we must be crystal clear that there is a profound difference between oversight and abandonment. The United States has long understood that a dollar spent on UN programs is an investment directly that protects American lives right here at home. These programs are not charity. They are frontline tools that reduce violent extremism, people reaching our shores. It stops dangerous drugs from devastating our communities. And it protects our health from, you know, threats, global threats in pandemics. Our voice within the UN system is a primary pillar of global peace. Walking away from this table is not a display of strength. It is a strategic mistake. It is the perfect storm when we also have the Voice of America being silenced, another program that completely lost its people power to run that program. One of the programs that I'm very interested in around the world that does a great job is UNICEF, and I think you've heard a lot about that here today. These are programs that reduce the pipeline of violent extremism, that save children soldiers, that help women. It's not unique that you have four females on this committee. I mean, we're committed to ensuring that rape is stopped and it does not continue to be a weapon of war. Ambassador, I want to hear that you are committed to following the appropriations laws in this committee and getting funding out the door for programs that help children worldwide. And I want to be very specific about why this UN presence truly matters. I applaud the UN special rapporteurs on trafficking for their efforts to ensure that child exploitation across borders. However, I'm incredibly alarmed by their recent report regarding Guatemala's Attorney General, Consuelo Porras. The report alleges that Ms. Porras was involved in selling, the selling of children on a massive scale. Especially it details her role as the legal guardian over at least 80 indigenous children who were later subject to illegal intercountry adoptions for profit. I visited Guatemala last year in August where 35,000 people had been repatriated to the country. And some of those were children that went through this process of being adopted by US families. And unfortunately, some of those adoptions, because they were illegally, illegal adoptions, children that were stolen from their indigenous families, those adoptions were not completed, therefore those children were sent home to a home that they don't know. I also want to be clear about that hunger cannot be a political weapon. You know, General James Mattis famously said that if you don't fund the State Department fully, then, you know, he said, I need to buy more ammunition. And he was arguing that cutting foreign aid development creates instability, forcing the military to spend more on warfighting. And we are seeing that right now. Secretary Henseth is asking for a $200 billion increase just to fund the war on Iran while we are cutting food lunch programs for American children on American soil, while we are cut healthcare for American citizens, while we cut, you know, many other programs, and while we are cutting food assistance for children abroad. So I want to hear a simple commitment that while you do your work of oversight, which is critically important and I support, that you're also committed to expediting the funding that is needed to meet the need of these children abroad.

Thank you, Congresswoman, and you have, you have my commitment. I work as closely as I can with both the F Bureau and the State Department that is charged with our aid dollars and also with the OMB to use them as effectively, as expeditiously, and in line with the Congress's intent. And I'll just say on a personal note, and I think the ranking member and I have had a number of conversations, I have seen all over the world in my time in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia that where girls are educated, where women are meaningfully participating in civil society and politics and business and even in their own militaries, you have a far more stable society. And stable societies abroad with half their population engaged in their economy and their, in their politics means less US troops abroad. So I, you know, you have an advocate here in that in that correlation as well.

Thank you, and I yield back.

Thank you. Obviously I try to be flexible with time and the ranking member and I always consult. For the next round, we're going to try to do four minutes and, and appreciate everybody's help on that. Yeah. What she says we maybe consulted, we consulted. We consulted. No, we're friends. Maybe four minutes. That's right. Okay. Ambassador, our bill, which is law, now requires that the Secretary of State to determine whether real accountability and anti-bias measures are in place before all funding can flow. Some will blame member states for the UN's bias and dysfunction, others say that it's the bureaucracy itself that is just biased and unaccountable. From your experience, from your perspective, how much of this problem is structural inside the UN system itself?

Mr. Chairman, I mean, just so I understand you, do you mean the anti-Israel bias? Do you mean the just the...

Let's start with that.

Yeah. I think in it, not to give you a non-answer, it depends. When we look at organizations like the Human Rights Council where there are 84 of these so-called special rapporteurs, when over 80 of them literally almost on a weekly basis condemn Israel for various actions, but then when you see the Iranian regime literally wholesale at industrial scale massacring its own people to the tune of tens of thousands within days and they're completely silent, I think it's been, it speaks to just an, an almost, it's difficult to describe the level of, of bias and going that's and what's behind it. Other organizations, for example, we were just, you know, we've talked a lot about UNICEF, World Food Programme, and others, we don't see that quite that same level of approach. We see much more of a pragmatic approach on getting food and life-saving aid into needy children's mouths as, as good as possible and they've been quite open to the reforms and efficiencies that we've, that we've asked for.

You know, talking about Israel, right? When the UN, UN pushed this famine, famine narrative which was built frankly on the Hamas propaganda while sidelining actual reliable data from Israel. I mean, I would, I would say that that's pretty clear anti-Israel bias in actual practice. And should that now weigh in on future US funding decisions?

Well, it, it has. Case in point, and, you know, Secretary Rubio himself said, UNRWA was completely infiltrated by Hamas. We saw a number of their employees take part in October 7th. One of the things that we're seeking to do regardless of the debate over the future of, of UNRWA, we've made the point to the Palestinian Authority and to this new board established with the resolution that established the Board of Peace, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza with more technocratic, apolitical Palestinians, you have to bring some of those functions, if you're going to govern, if there's a pathway to them governing, bring in the education, bring in the food distribution and others into an organization and get it out into their organization and get it out of this one that regardless of the debate around it, is no longer able to deal with both Israel and the international community in an objective way. And so we're not funding it anymore. Right.

And I appreciate that. And I'm grateful for that leadership. The ranking member.

Okay, here we go. Thank you, thank you again. So as I think this committee on a bipartisan basis, we recognize the, we recognize the importance of foreign assistance because it means more trading partners, it means we are healthier, it means less conflicts in the world. So that is a really, I think, a, a bipartisan mission on our part. And I just want to emphasize this again because next time we hear from you, and I know we're going to have a lot of interaction with your team, is tell us how all these reforms mean more life-saving vaccines to children, more children getting educated, less women getting raped in, in war, less starvation, which results really in less conflicts and more peace around the world. Because I've got to tell you, I don't know if I ever told you this, one of the reasons I ran for Congress because I sat as a mother for eight years waiting for my phone to ring every night when my son was at war. So it's very important to me what, what you do here. And it was music to my ears, and this is the reason you and I became friends in Congress, is your realization of the importance of opportunity for girls and empowering women because we know that when women are healthy and educated and have economic opportunities, it's much better for their communities and for our world. So I really want to ask you what kinds of things are you looking forward to doing, activities that are really going to empower the women of the world. And it was music to my ears, and this is the reason you and I became friends in Congress, is your realization of the importance of opportunity for girls and empowering women because we know that when women are healthy and educated and have economic opportunities, it's much better for their communities and for our world. So I really want to ask you what kinds of things are you looking forward to doing, activities that are really going to empower the women of the world.

Well, as we're sitting here today, the commission, the UN's Commission on the Status of Women is happening across the street. And I have to tell you, on the one hand, we're aligned in the need for women to thrive in societies and create more healthy and stable societies around the world, which makes us safer and more prosperous here at home. But some of the things these organizations are focused on, I think frankly miss the mark. There, if you look at the number of organizations that still allow for female genital mutilation. If you look at a number of countries that allow for child marriage, that require witnesses to be convicted of rape. Those are not the types of things some of these organizations are taking on, and they should be. And our mission here is pushing these organizations to really take these issues on. I just wanted to talk about development for a moment because I think that's incredibly important as well. This old model of sovereign nations providing taxpayer dollars to aid organizations to a network of NGOs just, I do not believe is sustainable in the long run. If you look at the increase in defense dollars that most European nations have taken, they've done it at the expense of their development and humanitarian aid as they deal with the massive amount of debt in their own sovereign governments. So what we're trying to do in a healthy way is to pull in the private sector. And as we pull in the private sector in a number of companies and industries that want to invest in developing nations, we're reorienting, for example, the UN Development Programme to lower barriers to foreign direct investment so that we can create jobs locally and move these aid grants and organizations out of business, right, over the long term, which should be all of our goal.

Mr. Ambassador, thank you. I just want to say this to you.

We're calling that trade over aid, by the way. We've got to label it.

The UNFPA and UN Women that we have defunded does exactly the kind of work that you were talking about to empower girls and women. And I would really urge you to relook at those agencies. And with that, I thank you again for your hospitality. Yield back.

Thank the ranking member. Mr. Ciscomani, you're recognized, sir.

Thank you, Chairman. And thank you. I want to actually piggyback off what you just said, Ambassador, when trade over aid. I think the Chairman mentioned at the beginning of the hearing, he said leverage, not tribute. I think these all come to the same conclusion or the same approach, which is the role that we need to play, where the funds are going, the accountability behind them as well, so that really American principles and values can rule the day in some of these situations where that's what's necessary to get out of the tough places that they're in. So I want to give you a chance to expand a little bit on that on the trade over aid. My background is on that when I was working for the state of Arizona. So I believe in the power of that and empowering individuals to go out and have their own say over their future. And nothing can do that more than the combination of having a free government combined also with economic opportunity in that nation. And that's what empowers an individual, I strongly believe. So can you piggyback off that? And then I have one more question after that, so hopefully we have time to get there.

I'll try to be brief. I won't name the organization or the country, but case in point, we're in the financial capital of the world. And I just sat with one of the major financial institutions, one of the brand names that everyone here would know. And they described to us a conversation they were having with a country that they very much want to invest in, a lot of opportunity for their capital to flow in. They were having a conversation with the country and they said, look, we need some judiciary reforms. We need to be able to arbitrate. We need to be able to go back to our investors and say with confidence we can get our money out. And as we were having this conversation, I looked at Ambassador Dan Negrea here, who's responsible for a lot of these efforts. And we're going to pull in a UN agency that has the technical expertise and the presence on the ground and the relationships with the current government to do exactly what this major financial institution is looking to do and needs to see in terms of reforms this small government doesn't know how to do the reforms. These technical agencies that we're paying for a quarter of here can go in and do that. So we're providing a bit of the glue to pull them together and also with our development agencies. We've met recently and we're going to have a series of forums with the Development Finance Corporation, with EXIM Bank, with the Millennium Challenge Corporation. And I'll just point out, I know there was a lot of concern over USAID. Many of those functions have been pulled into the State Department. It's also happened with United Kingdom. It's also happened with the Australian government. I just sat with the deputy director of a major agency over in Geneva, UN agency. They were thanking us because they told us how many times in their career they would get different guidance from AID than they would from State, than they would from the US military on the ground. So us having a more coherent whole and cooperating with the UN, but where the money is that can really move the needle for some of these mid-level and developing countries is in the private sector. And you'll go to these conferences here and they're nowhere to be found. We can pull those together.

Couldn't agree more. I'll squeeze in one quick question on our leadership role. Been said by many that if the US pulls back funding and leadership, adversarial regimes like the PRC will increase their funding involvement and leadership as well. Do you see any evidence of that potentially happening? And would there ever be these kind of leadership positions for countries that don't value human rights the way that we do and that they should?

Well, in some of these organizations where we've tried and it's just not working, like the Human Rights Council, the President made a decision we're just not going to participate anymore. I think others are much more reformable and others we have to get in there and fight. In the International Maritime Organization, they were literally a week away from putting in a carbon tax on global shipping. I guess with some fantastical goal of forcing fossil fueled tankers and ships and container ships to move to EVs. It was really almost hard to believe. It would have amounted to a billion dollars a month in fines on our global shipping fleet that would have been passed on to consumers, of course. We got in there and defeated that measure. That was not in line with our interest or I think with the best interest of our constituents. So some of these organization we just have to get in there and fight and win in line with what I think our constituents want to see.

Thank you, Ambassador. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you. Ms. DeLauro, you're recognized, ma'am.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Ambassador, I don't need to have the details, but can you provide us with the metrics of the rationale for eliminating UN Conference on Trade and Development, UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, the elimination of the Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict, Sexual Violence in Conflict, and general violence against children? Do not really need to have you answer that now, but I would love to get the metrics that would help us to understand how we move forward.

I'll take that for the record. I will point out.

I don't have a lot of time. I and I don't mean to be disrespectful at all, but the Chairman is he's dealing with the gavel here. It's important to have the gavel, don't I know it. My view, and I just say this, and I'm a strong supporter of the UN, but I believe that you are in many respects, you personally, but the policy is impeding the mission of the UN. It really is. And because my colleagues have mentioned this, the system includes humanitarian and development organization, play central roles in responding to global crises. It's promoting development, establishing international norms, international peace and security. When I take a look at the agencies, World Food, UNICEF, UNHCR, WHO, the United Nations Development Programme. Yes, and the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in UNRWA. That those UNRWA has been eliminated, that's there's no funding. And I'll be very frank about that and the Chairman has heard me mention this before. 1949 UNRWA was set up to be a temporary mechanism to deliver not only food, but health and education. And the elimination of our participation in that effort has destroyed a delivery system that is providing food. And if you don't believe that there is a humanitarian hunger crisis in Gaza today, I don't know what planet you are on. And it is not just hyperbole or propaganda from Hamas. Listen to David Miliband with the IRC. Listen to Cindy McCain at World Food Programme. It is a crisis beyond proportions. Yes, the people who were there, there were 19 I believe out of 11,000 employees. They were gone. We should vet them better, etc. But the delivery system has been cut off not only to Gaza, but to Jordan and to Lebanon as well. The resources to fully meet this year's assessment that were included, we're appropriators. We appropriated money for 2026. What is the plan, the United States plan to provide the resources that we appropriated to the United Nations?

Thank you for the question, ranking member. I will point out and I say this as a matter of pride. I visited Gaza, I visited our civil military coordination center and we have exceeded the number of trucks and the amount of aid.

It's commercial. It's commercial mainly going in.

No, no, no, it's humanitarian as well. And as a point of pride, we were able to, I was able to negotiate with the Israeli government and the Jordanian government to reopen the Allenby King Hussein Bridge to reopen that corridor as well that is providing aid. So we are exceeding. And the only way that happened was the 20 point peace plan, the ceasefire and the hostages. It is a long way to go.

With all due with all due with all due respect, I just returned from Israel. First of all, I wish that we were allowed as members of Congress to go to Gaza. We are not. And that is a combination of the Israeli government and the US government. Others are going in, but we can't go in to see for ourselves what what what is happening. And what came out of the peace plan in terms of the structure that's set up, met with those folks, impressive. I want that to succeed in every step of the way. And we know that it's out of this 42 truck, 4,200 trucks that going. On the other hand, the other hand, it is the two tier system of of what is dual use, what isn't dual use. It comes off the trucks, it has to be examined again, etc. And the food is not getting. It is not getting to the people. There's some things that have changed and I welcome that. And as I say, I want this process that came out of the the peace plan to succeed. And I met the people who are involved. Our Texas National Guard is there doing one hell of a job. But we need to clearly do more in in in dealing with that issue. How are the resources? I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. How are you going to restore the money that we provided to deal with the UN? And what's the plan for that?

And let me just and again we are very respectful and obviously these are these are important issues but we're I just want to make sure that everybody has a chance.

I I get it. But we appropriated the money. This crowd here said yes.

Mr. Ambassador, do you think you can try to answer something in 15 seconds, 20 seconds?

I as I committed to Representative Torres, I'll commit to obviously executing the will of the Congress and the administration.

Thank you. Mr. Edwards, you're recognized.

Mr. Ambassador, I I just can't stress enough how proud I am of the job that you're doing, the refocused approach, and it makes me so much more proud to be an American and part of this committee. I'm not going to ask a question. I'd just like to use a few moments to share an opinion outside of the realm of appropriations. There is a letter circulating, I think eventually you'll get a copy of that, with the opinion of many members of Congress, and I wanted to make you aware of that now, of our deep concern regarding the nomination of Dr. Michelle Bachelet to be the next United Nations Secretary-General. In her previous roles with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, as executive director of UN Women, and as president of Chile, Dr. Bachelet has repeatedly prioritized an extreme abortion agenda at the expense of state sovereignty. We believe, many of us believe she's an unsuitable candidate, and we believe the United States as a permanent member of the Security Council should veto that selection. I'm not going to ask you to comment on that. I just wanted to take an opportunity to to share that opinion. Thank you. With that, Mr. Chair, I yield.

Thank you. Ms. Meng.

Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, I represent a large Ukrainian-American community in Queens. My constituents are are very concerned and appalled by this administration constantly courting Russia and Putin while feeling like they are turning a cold shoulder toward the Ukrainian people who continue to suffer from Russian attacks. Just last week, we learned that Putin is helping the Iranian regime kill Americans and target allied forces in the region through intelligence sharing, but just recently on the four-year anniversary of the illegal Russian invasion of the UN, the U.S. abstained from the General Assembly resolution condemning that invasion, even though our European allies voted for it. That is shameful. This is a resolution that called for a full and unconditional ceasefire and the return of almost 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia. Now the U.S. is asking Ukraine for help to counter Iranian drones, which are damaging our embassies and allies in the war. Ambassador Waltz, could you talk about this and why did the U.S. abstain?

Sure, no, thank you thank you for the question and I'll tell you I remain here in close contact with both our European and the Ukrainian ambassador. I also engage the Russian ambassador as a member of the Security Council with a veto in terms of the vote that President made a shift last year to put the United States in the position to mediate this conflict and to end this war while still maintaining our support for Ukraine's ability to fight for itself. But I'll also point out it was this administration that took the action that many argue should have been taken years ago that put sanctions on Russia's largest energy exporter, Rosneft, that also put additional sanctions on Lukoil, its number two producer, that the prior administration did not do. So it's taken tough action and in terms of Iran, you know, Russia just lost its largest provider of the Shahed drone. Iran was manufacturing these drones, providing them to Russia, Russia was then using them against Ukraine. And so we've long understood this symbiotic relationship and that is now in many important ways going to be broken.

Yeah, I just wanted to ask about news that I've heard about the lifting of those sanctions because of the oil markets. I don't know if you can.

Well, my understanding from Secretary Bessent, this is and also we just had Secretary Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy here at at the UN to talk about energy transition and addition. These are a temporary measure for oil that was already out afloat, already out on the market, going to Chinese refineries and instead are now going to go to Indian and other refineries to lower the current global pressure as Iran illegally tries to shut down global energy flows. Those are a temporary measure to sanctions the Trump administration, not the prior administration, put on Russia's largest providers, all with an aim towards ending the war, of getting both sides to the table. They weren't talking at all, and in you know, here the seat of global diplomacy, now at least they're sitting in the same room and have narrowed down the issues to a few final remaining issues that hopefully we can end this war.

Thank you, I yield back.

Thank you. Mr. Moolenaar, you're recognized, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador, thank you again for being here. This past week, I had the opportunity to meet with three amazing individuals, and what they all had in common is that they were daughters whose loved one was imprisoned by the People's Republic of China. They are Claire Lai, her father is Jimmy Lai. He's in Hong Kong, spoke out for freedom, democracy, and has been there for five years, 80 years old, declining rapidly health in prison. The other is Grace Jin, and Grace's father, Pastor Ezra Jin, is in China. He recently was put in prison for teaching the Bible, preaching, being the leader of a church there. And the other is her name is Ziba and her mother is Dr. Gulshan Abbas, and she has also been imprisoned. She's Uyghur, and the reason she was imprisoned is because her sister here in the United States was speaking out against the genocide occurring against the Uyghurs in China. And I know President Trump will be meeting with Xi Jinping sometime in the future. I know these issues can be raised at, you know, meetings like this, and I would just ask for your help as you speak with others here at the United Nations and as you're preparing the discussions that will take place, I would ask you to advocate for those families who are suffering because their loved one has been unjustly imprisoned.

No, thank you. I think the Secretary has been outspoken in particular on the case of Jimmy Lai. So thank you for meeting with his family and just as a broader issue, we take very seriously the issue of religious freedom, the freedom of anyone anywhere to be able to worship. It's a fundamental right as Americans and it's a value that we want to propagate around the world and in particular in the prosecution of Christians around the world. And I just as an aside, appreciate the President's leadership on being so outspoken on the prosecution of Christians, which is is the most persecuted, excuse me, I said prosecution, persecution of of it's the most persecuted religion anywhere in the world right now. I did not have this on my dance card when I took the job, but to have an international celebrity like Nicki Minaj here to put her spotlight on the persecution of Christians and the issue of religious freedom was was really quite special and something we'll continue to do. But I take that on board as we engage, you know, one of the fascinating parts about this position is I probably have to be in our diplomatic corps the only one that regularly engages the Russians, the Chinese, and every other country in the world as we conduct our mission here.

Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

Thank you, sir. Ms. Torres, you're recognized.

I I want to start by saying that I completely oppose any lifting of any sanctions on Russia. Russia is providing intelligence to kill, to murder U.S. soldiers during this conflict with Iran. I think that we should be clear-eyed about that. They are not our friends, and they should never be allowed to have a place at our table. Ambassador, you and I talked a little bit last night about some of the difficult issues around the world around hunger. I visited with the Chairman, we went to Nigeria last year. I was alarmed to see and to hear from our folks on the ground there that while we have continued to provide some food assistance dollars, we have not funded the delivery of that food. So this is troubling to me because while, you know, we can fund food programs, but if we don't fund the delivery, it makes things very, very complicated. Four years ago, I was in Sudan and South Sudan and was alarmed that USAID had not reached certain areas and that the rain was coming and that if we didn't critically deliver that aid within those three days that we were there, many children and women would be totally alienated from being able to receive anything because of the flooding that occurs. This is not unique to that. In Sierra Leone, I saw a group of women, a handful of women taking care of 120 children that had been left alone. These many of these were toddlers. So USAID is critically needed. And Ambassador, what is the plan to sustain World Food Programme operations beyond the commitments that run out at the end of this year?

Thank you, and I appreciated our our conversation. In Sudan, Special Envoy Poulos has been quite engaged. The President has charged him with resolving that conflict, another peace deal where the United States is trying to take a leadership role in a very, very complicated and difficult situation. We've reconvened the Quad countries, picking up from an an initiative that was started in the last administration. And I guess the bottom line is we hope to have some humanitarian corridors agreed by all sides to allow World Food Programme, UNICEF, and others to get that life-saving aid in on a humanitarian basis. And you're absolutely right, hunger and starvation is tragically being used by the warring sides. We think we're close to getting them to stop and we will take that again, where does the UN kind of matter? Once we put that through a Security Council resolution, we have the world agreed now to the force of international law and any outside entity that have been funding and supporting the warring sides. And on the money and on the funding, we just made a $2 billion contribution to OCHA to pooled funding. OCHA then in turn turned 200 million of that down to these agencies in Sudan as the first order. Gaza and those contributions will be next to the conversation I was just having with Ms. DeLauro. So America is a humanitarian nation, but we will do everything we can to make sure those dollars are being used efficiently, effectively. And when I talk to outside organizations and they complain to me that by their estimate only 30, 40 percent of their money is actually reaching people in need as it filters through these layers of bureaucracy, that's what we're seeking to clean out so it does get to these children that so badly need it.

Thank you. I appreciate that and I yield back to the Chair.

Thank you. Members may submit additional questions for the record. Ambassador Waltz, look, thank you for your service. Thank you for your leadership and thank you for hosting the subcommittee. Members, this concludes today's hearing. The Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs stands adjourned.