When the host turns hostile: moving UN headquarters to save multilateralism?

On 4 January 2026, the United States adopted Executive Order 14199, withdrawing from a wide range of international organisations, including 31 United Nations agencies and entities. The decision affects international treaties that require formal withdrawal (e.g., United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), as well as operational and financial disengagement from significant parts of the UN system (on the scope of these withdrawals see Galbraith). These bodies were characterised as “wasteful, ineffective, or harmful” (Rubio, Secretary of State Press Release). Reactions across social media and the press were immediate and overwhelmingly critical (see e.g. here and here). The UN Secretary General, in a statement on 8 January, vowed that the organisation would continue its mission with determination.

Like other 2026 global shifts, the United States’ actions have precedents. Washington has long used withdrawal to signal disagreement or force change -such as missing its Universal Periodic Review (2025), exiting UNESCO (1984, 2017, 2025), and the Human Rights Council (2018). and restricting funding to UNRWA (2018, 2024). The logic of these responses remained internal to the multilateral system: the disengagement was a reaction to alleged institutional flaws: politicisation, perceived anti-Israeli bias, or the presence of serious human rights violators on UN bodies.

The current rationale, however, is a codified articulation that entire categories of international cooperation are contrary to US national interests. Participation is made conditional on direct returns instead of the pursuit of collective interests, and withdrawal becomes a legitimate expression of sovereignty.

This post argues that when the host State of the UN headquarters openly denigrates multilateralism, the question of location becomes unavoidable: can the kind of global political consensus now urgently required – the kind of founding moment that made the UN possible in 1945 – credibly emerge in a city whose government contests the system it is supposed to host and protect?