The BEST News We've Read Today! The U.N. Is Set to Run Out of Cash 'Within Months'

This writer is going to have to stop at the store and get a bottle of champagne, because if the United Nations goes bankrupt, she is going to celebrate with a glass (or several) of bubbly.

The Economist is reporting the U.N. is running out of cash. Within months.

Wait, what’s the problem? pic.twitter.com/whWsa9P0of
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 2, 2025

More from The Economist:

On May 5th the UN will brief members on a previously unreported $600m (17%) cut to its $3.7bn budget aimed at avoiding default this year. It will include a hiring freeze while officials consider further savings that a Western diplomat describes as “moving jobs from New York to Nairobi”. Yet it may not be enough. A combination of deadbeat members and mad budget rules have led to a liquidity crisis. Now, a leaked White House memo proposing that America stop paying its mandatory contributions threatens a financial crash in the citadel of peace and security.
Last year the UN had a $200m cash shortfall, despite spending only 90% of its planned budget. This year will be much worse. Internal modelling suggests that the year-end cash deficit will, without cuts, probably blow out to $1.1bn, leaving the UN without money to pay salaries and suppliers by September. Most UN funding, such as for bodies providing humanitarian food or shelter, is voluntary, but the core functions are paid for through mandatory dues, linked to the size of members’ economies. These core functions include General Assembly meetings, peacekeeping and human-rights monitoring. In a letter seen by The Economist that Mr Guterres sent to members in February, he warned that the peacekeeping budget to pay for troops may run dry by mid-year.

If the UN were worth funding, there would be no war in Ukraine; the issues would have been worked out during calm discussion. The whole point of its founding and funding was to prevent disputes from rising to armed combat. It has failed miserably in its mission.
— Objective interlocutor (@Objectivei32678) May 2, 2025

It's a giant money laundering scheme.

"Not funding" is hardly the same as "pushing". That's like saying that I'm "pushing" a pickpocket into his trade because I don't simply hand over my money freely.
— Sandy Petersen 🪔 (@SandyofCthulhu) May 2, 2025

Exactly.

193 nations "participate" and they dry up without 2? Yeah, we've been conned hard for a long time.
— 'tis wut 'tis (@NicolaiNihilist) May 2, 2025

The math ain't mathing, is it?

The building would make great condos.
— Carl Gottlieb (@c_cgottlieb) May 2, 2025

They sure would. That's some prime Manhattan real estate.

We provide 22% of the budget. There are 192 other member states that supplies the remainder. They need to kick it up.
— Narr Trek (@narrtrek) May 2, 2025

And China contributes 5%. So where's the rest of that money going if 27% of the budget tanks the U.N.?