newYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
The US State Department announced on Saturday that the United States “rejects the outdated model of multilateralism,” saying that this system has turned American taxpayers into “a global guarantor of a sprawling structure of global governance.”
Additionally, she said President Donald Trump’s recent order withdrawing the United States from 66 international organizations showed that “the era of writing blank checks to international bureaucracies is over.”
The move represents the latest in Trump’s broader “America First” agenda, which aims to cut spending that the administration considers wasteful, ineffective or inconsistent with American interests.
“What we call the ‘international system’ is now overrun by hundreds of arcane international organizations, many with overlapping jurisdictions, duplicative procedures, ineffective outcomes, and poor financial and ethical management,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a memo posted on Twitter. Substack of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Trump orders the United States to withdraw from 66 “wasteful” global organizations as part of the comprehensive “America First” campaign
Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds his year-end press conference at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on December 19, 2025. (Kevin Mohat/Reuters)
“Even those that once performed useful functions have increasingly become ineffective bureaucracies, platforms for politicized activity, or tools that run counter to our nation’s interests,” Rubio added. “Not only do these institutions not deliver results, they impede the work of those who want to address these problems.”
Rubio did not back down from his criticism of the organizations, considering that continued US involvement “would amount to an abandonment of our patriotic duty.” In addition, the Secretary emphasized that this does not mean that the United States is retreating from global leadership, but rather that it is rejecting what the administration sees as an outdated model of multilateralism.
The United Nations headquarters building in New York City on July 16, 2024. (Jakub Purzycki/Noor Photo via Getty Images)
On Wednesday, Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the United States to withdraw from 66 international organizations, and ordering executive departments and agencies to stop participating in and funding entities that the administration says no longer serve American interests.
The memo came less than a year after a Feb. 4, 2025, order that directed Rubio, along with the U.S. representative to the United Nations, to conduct a review “of all intergovernmental organizations of which the United States is a member that provides any type of funding or other support, and all agreements and treaties to which the United States is a party, to identify organizations, agreements, and treaties that conflict with the interests of the United States,” according to the memo. The White House.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio whispers to President Donald Trump, who holds the memo Rubio handed him, during a roundtable on Antifa in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Click here to download the FOX NEWS app
The results were presented to the president, who deliberated with his government before moving forward with the withdrawals.
In a January 2026 memo, Trump said Rubio’s findings showed that it was “contrary to the interests of the United States to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support for” the listed groups.
UN affiliated organizations included the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, and the United Nations Democracy Fund, among others. Non-UN groups included the International Solar Alliance and the Global Forum on Migration and Development, among others.
Fox News Digital’s Jasmine Beyer contributed to this report.