The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the United States will exit the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
‘President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw the United States from UNESCO – which supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes that are totally out-of-step with the commonsense policies that Americans voted for in November. This president will always put America First and ensure our country’s membership in all international organizations aligns with our national interests,’ White House Deputy Spokesperson Anna Kelly said on Tuesday.
‘The U.S. continues to demonstrate moral clarity in the international arena and when it comes to its involvement and financial investments in international organizations, and makes it clear that it is unwilling to support entities that promote hatred, historical revisionism, and political divisiveness over advancing shared universal values,’ Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement.
Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar also commended the decision, which he said ‘is a necessary step, designed to promote justice and Israel’s right to fair treatment in the U.N. system, a right which has often been trampled due to politicization in this arena.’
‘Singling out Israel and politicization by member states must end, in this and all professional U.N. agencies,’ Sa’ar added.
The move comes as the administration continues to make waves in the international community, and in particular at the U.N. The U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has drawn the ire of the U.N. and other international bodies.
Additionally, Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed his concerns about the Trump administration’s foreign aid cuts, which he said would be ‘especially devastating’ to the world’s vulnerable populations, according to Reuters.
State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement on the exit that ‘continued involvement with UNESCO is not in the national interest of the United States.’
‘UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy,’ the statement read. ‘UNESCO’s decision to admit the ‘State of Palestine’ as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.’
Trump withdrew the U.S. from UNESCO in October 2017, during his first term, but former President Joe Biden had the country rejoin the agency in 2023. In 2017, the State Department said the U.S. was withdrawing from the agency for very similar reasons, suggesting UNESCO has not sufficiently fixed the issues at the center of the Trump administration’s concerns.