The Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the United Nations population agency and the U.N. treaty that establishes international climate negotiations, as the United States further withdraws from global cooperation.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order suspending support for 66 organizations, agencies and commissions, following his instructions asking his administration to review the participation and funding of all international organizations, including those affiliated with the United Nations, according to a White House statement on social media.
Most of the targets are U.N.-linked agencies, commissions and advisory groups that focus on climate, labor and other issues that the Trump administration has categorized as addressing diversity and “woke” initiatives.
Other non-UN organizations on the list include the Atlantic Cooperation Partnership, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the Global Counterterrorism Forum.
“The Trump Administration found these institutions redundant in scope, mismanaged, wasteful, wasteful, mismanaged, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to ours, or posing a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity,” the State Department said in a statement.
Trump’s decision to withdraw from organizations that encourage cooperation among nations to address global challenges comes as his administration has launched military efforts or issued threats that have rattled allies and adversaries, including the capture of autocratic Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and indication of plans to seize Greenland.
Latest US withdrawal from global agencies
The administration had previously suspended support for agencies including the World Health Organization, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO. He has taken a different approach to paying his dues to the global body, choosing operations and agencies that he believes fit Trump’s agenda and those that no longer serve U.S. interests.
“I think what we’re seeing is a crystallization of the American approach to multilateralism, which is ‘my way or the highway,’” said Daniel Forti, head of U.N. affairs at the International Crisis Group. “This is a very clear vision of wanting international cooperation on Washington’s own terms.”
It marked a major shift from how previous administrations — both Republican and Democratic — treated the U.N., and it forced the world body, already subject to its own internal assessments, to respond with a series of staff and program cuts.
Many independent nongovernmental agencies — some of which work with the United Nations — have cited numerous project closures due to the U.S. administration’s decision last year to slash foreign aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Despite this massive shift, U.S. officials, including Trump himself, say they have seen the potential in the U.N. and instead want to focus taxpayer dollars on expanding U.S. influence in many U.N. normative initiatives where there is competition with China, such as the International Telecommunications Union, the International Maritime Organization, and the International Labor Organization.
Continued abandonment of the fight against climate change
Withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, is the latest attempt by Trump and his allies to distance the United States from international organizations focused on climate and the fight against climate change.
The UNFCCC, the 1992 agreement among 198 countries to financially support climate change-related activities in developing countries, is the treaty underlying the landmark Paris climate accord. Trump, who calls climate change a hoax, withdrew from the deal shortly after winning back the White House.
Gina McCarthy, former White House national climate adviser, called the move “a short-sighted, embarrassing and senseless decision.”
“As the only country in the world not part of the UNFCCC treaty, the Trump administration is wasting decades of American leadership on climate change and global collaboration,” McCarthy, co-chair of America Is All In, a coalition of U.S. states and cities concerned about climate, said in a statement.
Mainstream scientists say climate change is causing increased cases of deadly and costly extreme weather, including floods, droughts, wildfires, intense rainfall and dangerous heat.
The U.S. withdrawal could hamper global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases because it “gives other countries an excuse to delay their own actions and commitments,” said Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford University who chairs the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that monitor countries’ carbon dioxide emissions.
It will also be difficult to make significant progress in combating climate change without cooperation from the United States, one of the world’s largest emitters and economies, experts said.
The United Nations population agency, which deals with sexual and reproductive health worldwide, has long been a lightning rod for Republican opposition and Trump himself cut funding for the agency during his first term. He and other Republican Party officials have accused the agency of participating in “coercive abortion practices” in countries like China.
When former US President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, he restored funding to the agency. A State Department review conducted the following year found no evidence to support these claims.
Other organizations and agencies that the United States will leave include the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, the Pan American Institute of Geography and History, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group.
The State Department said additional reviews were underway.
