For Immediate Release
Monday, September 23, New York, NY – Ahead of President Donald Trump's speech to the UN General Assembly today, Secretary General of CIVICUS, Mandeep Tiwana, said:
“One of the greatest threats to peace and multilateralism today is the United States President. While President Trump touts his peacemaking abilities, the U.S. is enabling a genocide by Israel, warmongering by Russia, and a breakdown in global stability through its cuts to UN funding.
The U.S. is censoring citizen and civil society voices, silencing protest calls to action, and creating a culture of fear on the global stage. Voting against the New York Declaration on a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine yesterday shows the U.S. is an outlier among ‘we the peoples of the United Nations’.”
CIVICUS is calling for an end to the genocide, for Israel to immediately declare a ceasefire, commit to a peace process, and allow full humanitarian access. It also calls for the U.S. to respect the freedoms of civil society to mobilize to demand action on Israel, including the right to protest. Due to the Trump administration’s assault on democratic norms and global cooperation, CIVICUS added the United States to its March Watchlist of countries with faltering civic freedoms this year. With an escalating onslaught on human rights, including using the military against protesting civilians, it was again flagged on the July watchlist.
Background
The Trump administration has abandoned multilateralism in favor of transactional bilateral deals while spearheading a donor funding withdrawal that is hitting both the UN and civil society hard. One of the most powerful states owes the most to the UN, with the U.S. in the lead with a circa $1.5 billion debt. In a world riven by worsening conflicts, UN human rights investigations on Palestine, Sudan, and Ukraine aren’t able to operate at anywhere near full capacity. Funding shortfalls, intensified by the Trump administration pulling out of key UN bodies and agreements, have forced the UN to plan for a 20 per cent budget cut in 2026. The cuts mean the UN will be planning to do less than it has done before, at a time when the problems are bigger than they’ve been in decades.
The U.S. government has also repudiated the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the ambitious and progressive targets all states agreed to in 2015, but which are now badly off track.
Read more
- The United States of America is added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist due to threats to civic freedoms under Trump administration. (March 10, 2025)
- Military Deployments Against Protests, Attacks on Constitutional Freedoms Keep USA on Human Rights Watchlist (July 30, 2025)
- Israel must face accountability as Gaza genocide intensifies (Aug. 14, 2025)
- US Democracy under siege (May 20, 2025)
- Sanctions on the United Nations Special Rapporteur an assault on human rights (July 15, 2025)
- UN Celebrates 80 Years, but Civil Society Faces Ongoing Barriers (Sept. 4, 2025)
About CIVICUS
CIVICUS is a global alliance of 15,000+ civil society organizations and activists in 175 countries, including Amnesty International, Oxfam, Greenpeace, Plan International, and Save the Children. CIVICUS works to strengthen civil society and citizen action for expanded civic and democratic space.
