An executive order that would remove the United States of America from the UN Human Rights Council was signed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Under the order, the United States would also review its participation in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation and withdraw from the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
The moves were made in protest against what White House staff secretary Will Scharf described as “anti-American bias” at the UN agencies.
The General Assembly elects the 47 members of the UN Human Rights Council to three-year terms; the United States’ most recent term ends on December 31. At the moment, it is an observer at 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 highlighted the UN’s “tremendous potential” 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 the 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.
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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. Still, they 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
