U.S. Seals Deal to Cut Share of U.N. Dues

The United Nations agreed in principle Friday to reduce the U.S. share of the world organization’s budget, a major step toward ending a standoff with Congress that has caused festering resentment and left the U.N. scrimping for the funds that it believes are needed to carry out its mission.

Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., clinched the agreement after months of negotiations, a week of intense arm-twisting and a last-minute intervention by CNN founder Ted Turner, who offered to make up the reduction in one year’s U.S. dues--about $35 million--from his own pocket.

Japan and Russia also offered to help mitigate the costs that otherwise would have to be absorbed by 18 developing countries because of the U.S. reduction--gestures that diplomats said helped seal the deal.

If the deal is approved by the 189-member U.N. General Assembly, it will cut the U.S. share of the world organization’s $1.1-billion annual administrative budget to 22% from 25%, as Congress has demanded.

Foreign diplomats said they agreed to the new formula in the expectation that Congress would respond quickly by paying down Washington’s debt to the United Nations, even though the total amount owed by the United States remains in dispute. Congress estimates U.S. arrears at $800 million, while the U.N. Secretariat says they total $1.3 billion.

Over the longer term, diplomats said, the agreement could help restore bipartisan support for the United Nations in Congress, where some lawmakers have long chafed at what they view as the organization’s bloated bureaucracy, inefficient spending and penchant for anti-American and anti-Israeli posturing.

Holbrooke said it appeared that the U.S. assessment for peacekeeping would drop below 27% from the current 30.4%. “We don’t have the exact figure yet,” he said.

Under legislation crafted by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), the panel’s ranking minority member, U.S. payment of $926 million in arrears to the United Nations is contingent on reductions in the American share of the administrative and peacekeeping budgets. The U.S. repaid $100 million last year and is scheduled to turn over $584 million before year’s end if the U.N. meets the congressional conditions. The balance would be paid by the end of 2001.

U.N. officials have long complained that the U.S. failure the to pay its dues in full and on time has left the organization in difficult financial straits and placed an unfair burden on other countries.

Diplomats said that several rising economic powerhouses, including Singapore, Brazil and South Korea, would bear most of the burden in making up for the American reductions. Wealthy European Union nations had refused to increase their payments.