US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and demanding a review of US involvement in the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
As of the time of writing, the Trump administration had yet to publish the text of the order. But a video posted to the president’s social media account shows White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf presenting the president with an order to sign, stating:
In light of the numerous actions taken by a number of bodies of the United Nations which exhibited deep anti-American bias, we have an executive order prepared for your attention that would withdraw the United States from the UN Human Rights Council, would withdraw the United States from the UNRWA — which is a refugee organization — and would also review American involvement in UNESCO, which has also exhibited anti-American bias. 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 that, as you’ve expressed previously, is deeply unfair to the United States.
Trump responded:
So I’ve always felt that the UN has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to that potential right now. It really isn’t — hasn’t for a long time… There are great hopes for it, but it’s not being well run, to be honest, and not doing the job. A lot of these conflicts that we’re working on should be settled, or at least we should have some help in settling them. We never seem to get help. That should be the primary purpose of the UN … It’s got great potential, and based on the potential, we’ll continue to go along with it, but you got to get their act together.
