As world leaders gather at the United Nations next week, former U.S. diplomat Hugh Dugan is urging Washington to demand accountability.
‘We need to see an organization that is effective and efficient, or we need to move on,’ Dugan, who advised 11 U.S. ambassadors to the UN and served as President Donald Trump’s envoy for hostage affairs in the first administration, told Fox News Digital.
The U.S. provides between 20 and 30 percent of the U.N.’s budget, and going forward, U.S. taxpayer dollars for the international body should be ‘conditional’ on progress, Dugan said.
‘We are the host country. We were an architect of the U.N. So, yes, I believe that the president is going to come with a conditional mindset,’ he added.
The biggest hope for change, according to Dugan, is next year’s secretary-general election.
‘Members have to develop the correct expectations and communicate those to the field of candidates over the next several months, so that we can understand where the organization could go in the future,’ he said.
The most immediate diplomatic value of this year’s assembly, Dugan noted, will be the conversations on the sidelines.
‘That’s the power of the U.N., where they enable people to talk with each other without expectations from the public.’
That said, he does not believe the gathering will resolve the world’s most pressing conflicts — from the war in Ukraine to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
‘It has had plenty of opportunity. It hasn’t risen to the occasion,’ Dugan said.
The U.N. must begin offering a ‘report to shareholders’ — a yearly breakdown of where money went and what change it produced, according to Dugan.
Beyond reform, Dugan warned that the U.S. cannot afford to ignore China’s growing influence inside the United Nations system. He said Beijing has been steadily building up its diplomatic ‘bench’ and mastering the rules of multilateral diplomacy.
‘China is investing in its diplomatic talent from the ground up, and they are going to master the multilateral game relatively soon,’ he said. ‘We need to invest in our own skill set — a thicker bench that understands this place — and beat China on fair ground.’
Dugan cautioned that while the U.S. debates how much to spend, Beijing is positioning itself to shape the agenda in ways that could sideline human rights and tilt the institution toward authoritarian priorities.
As Trump prepares to address the General Assembly, Dugan said the stakes are clear: the U.S. must demand that the U.N. prove its worth or risk ceding influence to rivals.
‘The single most important message,’ Dugan argued, ‘is that the U.N. must perform if it wants continued American support. Otherwise, we’ll look elsewhere — and China will be all too ready to fill the void.’