When the Trump administration announced its withdrawal from, and defunding of, 66 international organisations and treaty bodies on 7 January, 2026 much of the media coverage framed the move as reckless isolationism or short-term budget cutting. That framing misunderstands what is actually happening.

This is not primarily a cost-saving exercise. It is a deliberate strategic break from a model of global governance that increasingly perpetuates problems rather than resolving them, and that relies on the continuous expansion of mandates, budgets, and crises to justify its own existence. Money matters here, but only insofar as it reveals intent.

Using the most recent consolidated US government contribution tables, a conservative reading shows that the United States was spending at least $90 million per year on a subset of the 66 organisations now being exited. That figure is a lower bound, based only on clearly identifiable FY2023 obligations tied to a handful of the largest recipients.

Among the biggest recipients of recent US funding on the withdrawal list were the United Nations Population Fund, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN Women, and UN-Habitat. Together, just these four entities account for the bulk of the identifiable spending in the conservative estimate above, with the population fund alone receiving tens of millions of dollars annually from the United States.

Climate-related bodies illustrate particularly clearly what Washington is stepping away from. US funding for the UNFCCC secretariat and associated climate processes has typically run into the low tens of millions of dollars annually, largely through voluntary contributions. These funds do not finance emissions reductions or energy innovation directly; they support the administrative machinery of global climate governance — conferences, reporting frameworks, expert panels, working groups, and compliance processes that expand year after year regardless of measurable climate outcomes.

This design is not accidental. Climate institutions are structured around process rather than resolution. There is no condition under which the UNFCCC can declare success and wind itself down. Progress justifies more funding; failure justifies even more.

The conservative $90 million estimate excludes dozens of smaller agencies among the 66, indirect funding routed through multi-donor trust funds, and future escalations embedded in open-ended commitments. In other words, $90 million is not the headline; it is the floor.

The administration did not withdraw randomly. The organisations selected for exit share a common institutional pathology. Bodies created to solve specific, technical problems have gradually evolved into permanent advocacy platforms. Climate secretariats, population agencies, and norm-setting bodies rarely declare success because success would undermine their relevance and funding base.

Funding models reinforce this dynamic by rewarding the identification of ever-expanding risks rather than measurable improvement. In climate policy, each missed target becomes justification for additional conferences, additional frameworks, and additional global coordination. Over time, this has produced institutions with weak performance metrics but strong moral authority.

Trump’s move signals a return to an older, now unfashionable principle: institutions should exist to solve problems, not to manage them indefinitely. By stepping away, the United States is reasserting sovereignty over policy priorities rather than outsourcing them to consensus-bound bodies. It is forcing a reckoning inside international organisations that have become dependent on US funding while remaining resistant to US scrutiny. It is also demonstrating that withdrawal is possible, breaking the assumption that once a country joins a global institution, exit is unthinkable.

A global climate, health, or development system that depends on the continuous escalation of crisis narratives is structurally incapable of declaring success. Trump’s decision confronts that reality directly. The savings — tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars — are real. But the larger gain is conceptual: the restoration of the idea that institutions are tools, not moral authorities.

In God’s scheme of things, Trump is a reprieve from the Godless agenda that has been controlling the world. We know from Scripture that it is temporary and that the Antichrist and his globalist agenda is coming. Keep watch on Israel, Iran, Turkey and the United Nations as they are leading players in the end times scenario.