As António Guterres approaches the end of his second, five-year term as United Nations secretary-general at the end of 2026, the Trump administration is willing to discard tradition and consider candidates from any part of the world for the global body’s top role, Dorothy Shea, deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Friday at a U.N. Security Council session.
“The next secretary-general should reject initiatives that fall outside the charter’s founding purpose, prioritize accountability and transparency and respect state sovereignty,” Shea said. “We believe the process for selection of such an important position should be purely merit-based, with as wide a pool of candidates as possible.”
“With this in mind, the United States invites candidates from all regional groupings,” she added. “The next secretary-general should bring the U.N. back to basics, and by so doing, help achieve the bold vision of peace and prosperity to which we all committed 80 years ago.”
Shea also criticized the global body’s direction, quoting Dag Hammarskjöld, a former U.N. secretary-general, who said, “The United Nations was not created in order to bring us to heaven but in order to save us from hell.”
“We should remember those words as we think about the way forward. The U.N. of today is no longer guided by this founding mission and has lost its way,” she told the council. “The U.N. is incapable of addressing the wars that still rage on in multiple continents. It has become a bloated bureaucracy weighed down by inefficiency, excessive spending and lack of accountability.”
Per unwritten custom, the top U.N. role rotates regionally, although Guterres, of Portugal, was first elected in 2016, a slot that was supposed to be assigned to Eastern Europe. Latin America and the Caribbean were supposed to be next. (Guterres began his first term in 2017 and was reelected in 2021.)
The president of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly and the 15 members of the global body’s Security Council will solicit nominations for the secretary-general by the end of the year.
The five council members who wield veto power, including Washington, must agree on a candidate by consensus with the other council members.
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the global body whose country has veto power on the council, told Reuters that “Latin Americans have all the moral reason to claim this term, but it does not prevent candidates from other regions to step in if they want to” and that “my criteria is merit.”
Reuters reported that two candidates have emerged before the race has officially begun. Chile has said that it plans to nominate Michelle Bachelet, its former president who pushed an anti-Israel agenda as U.N. high commissioner for human rights from 2018 to 2022, and Costa Rica aims to nominate Rebeca Grynspan, its former vice president and an economist who leads the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.
There has not yet been a female U.N. secretary-general in the global body’s 80 years.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency since 2019, said last month that he intends to run for U.N. secretary-general. However, Argentina, his native country, hasn’t said it will support his candidacy.
Grossi reportedly receives armed protection due to threats from the Iranian government, having drawn the regime’s ire for the way he handled the Iranian nuclear issue and the U.S. and Israeli attacks on the regime’s nuclear facilities this summer.
Shea told the Security Council on Friday that “the U.N. should serve member states rather than have member states beholden to an unaccountable bureaucracy.”
“Colleagues, the U.N. can become more focused, effective, relevant and efficient by recommitting to its founding purpose of maintaining international peace and security,” she said. “The United States will continue to reject initiatives that fall outside the purposes of the charter.”
She also talked turkey. “As the largest contributor to the U.N.’s budget throughout its existence, we will prioritize a strong return on our investment, as we expect other countries to do as well,” she said.
