America First at the UNDS? U.S. Influence on Strategic Planning in the UN Development and Humanitarian System

Amid growing contestation over the authority and purpose of multilateral institutions, powerful member states increasingly seek to reshape United Nations organizations in line with unilateral political priorities. This paper examines how far the United States, under the second Trump administration (since January 2025), has succeeded in redirecting the strategic orientation of organizations within the UN Development System (UNDS) in accordance with its “America First” approach. It focuses on the 2025 round of strategic plan renewals as a critical juncture in which struggles over organizational autonomy and donor influence become particularly visible. The study analyzes eight UN humanitarian and development organizations, all of which adopted updated strategic plans in 2025. U.S. influence is measured through an automated quantitative analysis assessing the alignment between strategic plan content and policy priorities articulated in official statements and guidance issued by the Trump administration. To explain variation in alignment across organizations, the paper evaluates several theoretically salient factors, including dependence on U.S. funding, timing of plan adoption, mandate–priority alignment, U.S. role on governing boards, the normative versus operational character of agencies, and observable bureaucratic and/or member state pushback against US positions. The quantitative analysis is triangulated with semi-structured expert interviews, enabling process-tracing of the mechanisms through which donor contestation translates—or fails to translate—into organizational strategy. The findings reveal uneven accommodation of U.S. priorities across the UNDS, highlighting both the reach of unilateral donor power and the institutional factors that constrain its impact. The paper contributes to debates on international organizations and multilateral crisis by offering a cross-organizational assessment of U.S. influence, specifying the conditions under which donor-driven contestation reshapes organizational strategy, and conceptualizing strategic planning as a central arena of power and authority in contemporary global governance.