Trump Signs Order Withdrawing US From UN Bodies
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday withdrawing Washington from a number of United Nations bodies, including its Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and setting up a broader review of US funding for the multilateral organisation.
The executive order said it withdrew Washington from UNHRC and the main UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and would review its involvement in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
White House staff secretary Will Scharf described the actions as “anti-American bias” at the UN agencies, prompting the protests.
The 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council are elected by the General Assembly to three-year terms, with the United States ending its latest term on December 31. It currently has observer status on the body.
Tuesday’s order would appear to end all US participation in the council’s activities, which include reviews of countries’ human rights records and specific allegations of rights abuses.
“More generally, the executive order calls for a review of American involvement and funding in the UN in light of the wild disparities and levels of funding among different countries,” said Scharf.
Trump praised the UN’s “tremendous potential” but criticised its “poor management.”
“It should be funded by everybody, but we’re disproportionate, as we always seem to be,” he said.
Trump has long railed against Washington’s levels of funding for multilateral bodies, calling for other countries to increase their contributions, notably the NATO military alliance.
UNRWA is the chief aid agency for Palestinians, with many of the 1.9 million people displaced by the war in Gaza dependent on its deliveries for survival.
Under Trump, Washington has backed a move by Israel to ban the agency after the US ally accused UNRWA of spreading hate material.
US funding of UNRWA was halted in January 2024 by the administration of then-president Joe Biden after Israel accused 12 of its employees of involvement in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.
A series of probes found some “neutrality-related issues” at UNRWA but identified no evidence for Israel’s chief allegations, and most other donors that had similarly suspended funding resumed their financial support.
Earlier in his latest term, Trump also withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and began withdrawing from the World Health Organisation, of which it is the largest donor.
Each of the withdrawals has been a repeat of the Republican billionaire’s first term in office, which ended in 2021.