The United Nations must reduce bureaucracy and focus on results, President Trump said Monday during remarks at a reform meeting.
Trump said the U.N. was founded on noble goals, but that “in recent years, the United Nations has not reached its full potential because of bureaucracy and mismanagement.”
“While the United Nations on a regular budget has increased more than 140 percent and its staff has more than doubled since 2000, we are not seeing the results in line with this investment,” he said.
Trump told U.N. Secretary General António Guterres that he believed blame belonged to his predecessors and that “you have been fantastic.” Guterres took office this year.
Trump outlined several objectives for U.N. reform, including a broad focus on “results rather than on process” and more specific aims such as protecting whistleblowers and putting new checks on international military deployments.
“We must ensure that no one and no member state shoulders a disproportionate share of the burden, and that’s militarily or financially,” he said. “We also ask that every peacekeeping mission have clearly defined goals and metrics for evaluating success.”
Trump’s remarks come ahead of his much-anticipated speech Tuesday before the U.N. General Assembly, where he is expected to discuss a host of world issues, such as nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, and share his vision for U.S. leadership in the world.
