On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from several United Nations bodies, including the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and initiate a broader review of U.S. funding for the multilateral organization.
The executive order announced the U.S. exit from the UNHRC and the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), and stated that a review of U.S. involvement with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) would take place.
These actions were taken in response to what White House staff secretary Will Scharf referred to as an “anti-American bias” within the UN agencies.
The UN Human Rights Council, which has 47 members, elects its members for three-year terms, with the U.S. concluding its current term on December 31. The U.S. currently holds observer status in the council.
Tuesday’s executive order appears to effectively end all U.S. participation in the council’s activities, which include evaluating countries’ human rights records and investigating specific allegations of rights violations.
“More generally, the executive order calls for 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 highlighted the “tremendous potential” of the UN but said it is “not being well run.”
“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 of multilateral bodies, calling for other countries to increase their contributions, notably at military alliance NATO.
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 found 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 accord and began withdrawing from the World Health Organization, 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.
