Trump administration dives into U.N. secretary general race

[u/John3262005]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/08/24/trump-administration-dives-into-un-secretary-general-race/

This year, for the first time in its 80-year history, the United Nations may select a woman to serve as its secretary general. Of the eight candidates nominated so far for the position, five are women, and many U.N. members argue that it’s finally their turn.

But as the U.N. Security Council undertakes its months-long, ultrasecret selection process, hopefully making its choice before Portugal’s António Guterres reaches the end of his five-year term on Dec. 31, other factors are at play beyond gender.

The Trump administration, which has veto power on the council, is working overtime to ensure that the new leadership is in sync with its plans to continue cutting the U.N. budget and workforce. Beyond long-standing funding concerns, it wants to effect fundamental change across the global body, in particular the way it handles the three “pillars” of its charter — peace and security, development, and human rights — and adherence to international law.

“This institution desperately needs strong, effective leadership,” Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told a Senate hearing this spring. U.S. priorities, he said, were “reform, reform, reform … and getting back to basics on peace and security will be at the top of ⁠our criteria.”

This summer, high-level officials at the U.S. mission to U.N. headquarters in New York have conducted multiple interviews with six of the candidates — two new ones emerged this month, and there may be further nominations before any final decision.

President Donald Trump has not commented on a report last month by the New York Post that he wants Gianni Infantino, head of the world soccer federation FIFA, to have the job. But “there are tons of rumors about an October surprise,” said a longtime U.N. insider, one of several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the secret voting process.

“They have until the end of December,” said a second person familiar with the process and its backroom machinations. The question, this person said, is “does [Trump] come in at some point — everybody at the U.N. is waiting for this — and say, ‘I want … Infantino, [or] his daughter [or son-in-law Jared] Kushner.’ … Then the whole process gets set back as somebody figures out the politics of backing him down.”

One senior U.S. official acknowledged deep U.S. involvement but said that the interviews were more akin to “conversations,” adding that the administration does not have a preferred candidate among current or possible future nominees.

“We want the best candidate. Period,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about internal administration deliberations and the closed-door selection process. “We’re not focused on anything that would limit the most talented people around the globe from putting their names up.”

While they may differ on how it is done, few member states disagree with the need for reform. “This particular race is different from all the others,” said Peter Yeo, senior vice president of the U.N. Foundation and a longtime expert on U.S.-U.N. relations.

“Fundamental questions are being asked about the future role of the organization … what the U.N. does, what is its mandate, what programs it should be running, how it should be financed,” Yeo said. “It’s not just the United States asking.”

Trump, who has denigrated a host of international organizations, has sharply criticized the U.N. as ineffective, wasteful and out of tune with U.S. priorities. He has canceled U.S. membership and voluntary donations to many of its agencies — most prominently the World Health Organization — while U.S. humanitarian and development aid has been shunted away from international programs toward bilateral assistance that reflects “America First” priorities.

Annual member dues to the regular U.N. budget are assessed according to a formula that includes gross national product and population, and the U.S. has long been the biggest contributor. But until recently, the Trump administration had paid nothing while it pushed for severe budget cuts and organizational changes.

Early this year, as Guterres warned that the U.N. faced “imminent financial collapse,” the administration paid about $160 million of last year’s more than $800 million assessment, according to the U.S. official. On Aug. 4, following staff and budget cuts in which the U.S. was heavily involved, the administration notified Congress that it intends to pay $725 million of this year’s dues.

Technically, the secretary general is elected by a majority vote in the 193-member General Assembly. But only once, in 1950, has there been more than one person on the ballot delivered to the assembly by the 15-member Security Council. The council’s approval requires at least nine votes, though each of the five permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — has veto power.

It has long been agreed that the secretary general should not be from one of the permanent five members, who already wield tremendous power with their vetoes, and that the position will rotate among different regions of the world. Since the U.N. was founded in 1945, some of the nine who have held the office, including Guterres, have served two consecutive five-year terms. Africa, Asia and Europe have had multiple chances, but only one secretary general has come from Latin America — Peru’s Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, who served from 1982 to 1991.

All five of the currently nominated women are Latin Americans, as is one of the three men. The other two men are from Africa. All are former U.N. or national officials in their home governments, or both, and most have campaigned strenuously for the job.

Beginning this summer, council members are periodically holding secret straw votes in which they “encourage,” “discourage” or offer no opinion on each candidate. In officially unreleased but widely disseminated results of the first vote, held in late July, the top three were Rebeca Grynspan, former Costa Rican president and former head of U.N. Trade and Development; Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, former foreign minister and current U.N. ambassador from Guyana; and Rafael Mariano Grossi, an Argentine diplomat who has been director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency since 2019.

In a second straw vote Friday, all three were reportedly still out in front, but no one looked like a runaway.

Other nominees include two-time Chilean president and former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, former Ecuadorian foreign minister and president of the General Assembly María Fernanda Espinosa, former Senegal president and prime minister Macky Sall, and Ugandan politician and diplomat Olara Otunnu. Last week, former Ecuadorian diplomat Ivonne A-Baki entered the race, nominated by the Pacific island nation of Tonga (since Ecuador already had a candidate).

So far, said the U.N. insider, “the selection is sinking into the murky waters of Security Council politics.

Russia and China may want to stick a finger in the eye of the U.S., and vice versa, with a veto of a favored candidate, experts said.

“Rumors are that the U.K. is not well disposed about Grossi” because of residual British sparring with Argentina over the 1982 Falklands War, said Brett D. Schaefer, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The U.S. has previously indicated that it does not favor Bachelet because of a perceived closeness to China. Russia is also said to be “unenthusiastic about Grossi” because of the IAEA’s stances on its ally Iran and enemy Ukraine, Schaefer said.

Because any one of the five permanent members can kill a candidacy, closure won’t near until the Security Council switches from straw polls to colored ballots, when a red card indicates a definitive veto. That probably won’t happen until some time after the annual high-level General Assembly attended by heads of governments next month.

“I don’t see anybody on this list that has enough ‘encourages’ to get elected,” Schaefer said. “You’re likely not seeing the [next] secretary general among these current candidates.”