<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/22/us-unesco-withdrawal-trump-united-nations>
"The US will quit the United Nations’ culture and education agency Unesco, the
US state department has said, as Donald Trump continues to pull out of
international institutions.
“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,” a state department spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, said.
The move is a blow to the Paris-based global organisation, founded after the
second world war to promote peace through international cooperation in
education, science and culture.
The decision is part of the president’s second-term drive to pull the US out of
a series of global bodies, including leaving the World Health Organization
(WHO), halting funding to the Palestinian relief agency Unrwa and withdrawing
from the UN human rights council, as part of a review of US participation in UN
agencies.
A US withdrawal, to take effect in December 2026, will be a blow to Unesco’s
work on education, culture and combating hate speech. But officials at the
Unesco headquarters in Paris had been braced for a potential US departure
during Trump’s second term. The US provides about 8% of the body’s total
budget, making the financial impact of Washington’s departure less severe than
for other organisations, such as the WHO, for which the US is by far the
biggest financial backer.
The White House deputy spokesperson Anna Kelly told the
New York Post:
“President 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.”
In February, the White House had announced a 90-day review of the US membership
of Unesco, saying in a statement that the global body had “demonstrated failure
to reform itself, has continually demonstrated anti-Israel sentiment over the
past decade, and has failed to address concerns over mounting arrears”.
Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization,
is best known for designating world heritage sites including the Grand Canyon
in the US and the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria. It also has a large
cultural and education programme to promote intercultural dialogue.
The US was a founding member of Unesco in 1945, but this latest departure will
be the third time it has quit."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
