Executive Order (EO) 14199 is a February 4, 2025 order titled “Withdrawing the United States From and Ending Funding to Certain United Nations Organizations and Reviewing United States Support to All International Organizations.” It does three main things:
• Immediately ends U.S. participation in the U.N. Human Rights Council and orders a review of U.S. membership in UNESCO. • Cuts off U.S. funding to UNRWA and withholds the U.S. share of funding for the Human Rights Council from the U.N. regular budget. • Directs the Secretary of State to review all intergovernmental organizations and treaties the U.S. belongs to, and to recommend which ones are “contrary to the interests of the United States” and whether the U.S. should withdraw from them.
EO 14199 itself does not create new legal powers; it uses the President’s existing authority over foreign policy and executive agencies. It tells agencies (especially the State Department) to stop funding and participating in specified bodies and to propose further withdrawals, which the President then acts on through later directives—like the January 7, 2026 memorandum that names the 66 organizations to exit.
The full list of 66 organizations is in Section 2 of the President’s January 7, 2026 memorandum. They fall into two groups and cover climate, environment, migration, gender, democracy, peacebuilding, and technical cooperation. In plain language:
A. Non‑U.N. organizations (35)
B. U.N. organizations and treaty‑based bodies (31)
The memorandum’s Section 2 is the authoritative list of all 66 names; news coverage from NPR and The Hindu (AP) describes many of these and highlights examples like UNFPA, UNFCCC, International Solar Alliance, and several climate‑ and migration‑focused bodies.
In this context “withdrawing” mostly means the U.S. government will stop funding and stop actively participating, rather than a single uniform legal act:
• The January 7, 2026 memorandum directs agencies to “take immediate steps to effectuate the withdrawal … as soon as possible” and says that for U.N. entities, withdrawal means ceasing participation in or funding to those entities to the extent permitted by law. • For many U.N. programs and subsidiary bodies (like UN Women or UN‑Habitat), this can be done quickly by halting contributions, not sending officials to meetings, and resigning seats. • For treaty‑based bodies (for example, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC), international law usually requires formal notice and a waiting period (often 1 year) before withdrawal takes legal effect. The administration can give that notice on its own, as previous presidents have done, though some legal scholars and members of Congress argue Congress should share in that decision.
So, practically, “withdrawal” under this directive is a mix of immediate funding freezes and non‑participation, plus formal treaty‑withdrawal notices where required, phased in as legal procedures allow.
Effects on U.S. treaty and program commitments will differ by organization:
• Where the organization is purely programmatic (e.g., Education Cannot Wait, some peacebuilding or development funds), U.S. “withdrawal” mainly means ending U.S. money and staff participation. The underlying treaties (if any) usually don’t create binding, specific spending or policy obligations, so the U.S. simply becomes inactive and stops paying in. • Where the body is created by a treaty with clear withdrawal rules, the U.S. can invoke those clauses. For example, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) allows a party to withdraw by written notification, taking effect one year later; that ends U.S. obligations under that treaty after the notice period. • In practice, the administration is already treating these moves as a way to walk back U.S. commitments on climate, population, migration, and human‑rights‑related work by leaving the forums that negotiate and oversee those commitments (UNFCCC, UNFPA‑linked work, UN peacebuilding, etc.). Analysts and former officials note this reduces U.S. ability to shape rules and standards, but it does not erase every prior obligation: some climate and human‑rights duties also arise from separate treaties the U.S. is not leaving.
Overall, the withdrawals shrink U.S. participation and leverage in many multilateral regimes and can, over time, terminate U.S. obligations under specific treaties (like UNFCCC) once formal withdrawal takes effect, but they do not automatically cancel all related international commitments.
The administration has framed this as a rapid but procedurally constrained process with only an indirect role for Congress:
• EO 14199 (Feb. 4, 2025) gave the Secretary of State 180 days to review all international organizations, conventions, and treaties and report recommendations on which to leave. • After receiving that report, the President issued the January 7, 2026 memorandum, which immediately names the 66 organizations and orders all agencies to “take immediate steps to effectuate the withdrawal … as soon as possible,” subject to legal limits. For U.N. entities, that primarily means stopping participation and funding right away where statutes allow. • The memo does not give Congress a formal veto or approval role in this withdrawal list. Congress’s role is indirect: it controls appropriations and can pass laws that require or block participation or spending. Members of Congress have already challenged related actions—such as the dismantling of USAID and wide‑ranging aid terminations—as unlawful and asked the Government Accountability Office to review the impacts, but no new statute specific to this 66‑body withdrawal has yet been reported.
So the announced timeline is: review completed in 2025 under EO 14199, list issued January 2026, and withdrawals implemented immediately and then phased in as notification and legal procedures require, with Congress influencing the process mainly through budget and oversight powers rather than a dedicated up‑or‑down vote.
Closing USAID and “dismantling the NGO‑plex” has already produced large and widely documented shocks to U.S. foreign aid and humanitarian work:
• On July 1, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the official closure of USAID, transferring foreign assistance functions to the State Department and cancelling or terminating tens of billions of dollars’ worth of existing programs. Independent trackers note that about US$69 billion in USAID programming remained when closure was announced, covering hundreds of humanitarian, health, and economic initiatives. • Members of Congress from the opposition have called the dismantling illegal, asking the Government Accountability Office to examine the financial and strategic damage from mass terminations of USAID and State Department contracts and grants, and questioning whether State has the staff or expertise to run remaining aid programs. • Investigative reporting has linked the cuts and shutdown of USAID to severe humanitarian impacts. For example, in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, the abrupt cutoff of U.S. funding to the U.N. World Food Programme led to record ration cuts and child malnutrition; aid workers and refugees reported deaths and instability tied to the loss of U.S. food assistance, even as the administration claimed essential food programs were exempt. • More broadly, U.N. officials and analysts say the combination of USAID’s closure, large U.S. aid cuts, and now withdrawal from 66 multilateral organizations has forced major program closures, reduced funding for climate, health, refugee, and gender‑equality work, and weakened U.S. influence (“soft power”) in many regions.
In practical terms, the closure of USAID and dismantling of the NGO‑linked foreign aid system mean less U.S. money, staff, and technical capacity behind development and humanitarian programs, more pressure on U.N. agencies and other donors to fill gaps, and greater volatility for communities that relied heavily on U.S. assistance.