The Trump administration officially withdrew from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Tuesday, reversing another policy of President Joe Biden’s administration.
President Donald Trump had signed an executive order in early February reviewing U.S. participation in UNESCO, and the State Department announced the result of that review in a brief statement on Wednesday:
Today, the United States informed Director-General Audrey Azoulay of the United States’ decision to withdraw from UNESCO. Continued involvement in 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 UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy. 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.
Continued U.S. participation in international organizations will focus on advancing American interests with clarity and conviction.
Pursuant to Article II(6) of the UNESCO Constitution, U.S. withdrawal will take effect on December 31, 2026. The United States will remain a full member of UNESCO until that time.
The first Trump administration pulled out of UNESCO, explaining in 2017 that the organization had been corrupted by anti-Israel bias. UNESCO had tried to deny the historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
In 2023, the Biden administration rejoined UNESCO as part of its effort to restore multilateral institutions from which Trump had withdrawn, whether those institutions shared American interests and values, or not.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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