As the United States retreats further from international cooperation, the Trump administration will withdraw from dozens of international organizations, including the UN Population Agency and the UN Convention on Climate Change.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to freeze aid to 66 organizations, agencies and commissions after ordering a review of participation and funding for 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.-affiliated agencies, commissions and advisory panels focused on climate, energy and other issues that the Trump administration has labeled “active” in dealing with diversity, according to a partial list obtained by The Associated Press.
“The Trump administration finds these institutions to be overreaching, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, mismanaged, held in the interests of actors who advance their own agendas contrary to our own, or threaten our nation’s sovereignty, liberties, and overall prosperity,” the State Department said in a statement.
Trump’s decision to pull out of the organization that fosters cooperation among countries to tackle global challenges comes after the administration has launched military efforts or issued threats that have angered allies and opponents, such as the arrest of autocratic Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his desire to seize control of Greenland.
Recent US withdrawal from international agencies
The administration has previously cut funding to agencies such as the World Health Organization, the United Nations Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA), the United Nations Human Rights Council and the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO. It has taken a different approach to paying its dues to the world body, selecting jobs and agencies that align with the Trump agenda and do not serve American interests.
“I think what we’re seeing is a ‘my way or the highway’ approach to US multilateralism,” said Daniel Forti, head of UN affairs at the International Crisis Group. “It’s a very clear vision of Washington seeking international cooperation on its own terms.”
The previous administrations – Republican and Democratic – showed a major change in how they interacted with the United Nations, and forced the world body to return to its own internal calculations, a series of staff and program cuts.
A number of independent NGOs – some working with the United Nations – have cited the closure of many projects as a result of the US administration’s decision last year to cut off foreign aid through the US Agency for International Development, or USAID.
Despite the big change, US officials, including Trump, have seen the UN’s potential and want to focus taxpayer money instead on expanding US influence in rival China-aligned organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union, the International Maritime Organization and the International Labor Organization.
Continued from addressing climate change
Pulling out of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, is the latest effort by Trump and his allies to distance the United States from international organizations focused on climate change.
The UNFCC, a 1992 agreement between 198 countries to finance climate change activities in developing countries, is the flagship of the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump, who calls climate change a hoax, pulled out of the deal almost immediately after taking back the White House.
Climate change is behind deadly and costly weather events, including floods, droughts, wildfires, torrential rains and dangerous warming, leading scientists say.
A U.S. withdrawal could hamper global efforts to curb 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 with the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists that tracks countries’ carbon dioxide emissions.
Without the cooperation of the world’s largest climate change and economy, it will be difficult to make meaningful progress on climate change, experts say.
The UN’s population agency, which covers sexual and reproductive health around the world, has been a lightning rod for Republican opponents, and Trump himself cut funding to the agency during his first term in office. He and other GOP officials have accused the agency of engaging in “forced abortion practices” in countries like China.
When former US President Joe Biden takes office in January 2021, he defunds the agency. A State Department review the following year found no evidence to support these claims.
Other organizations and agencies with which the United States is withdrawing include the Carbon Free Energy Compact, the United Nations University, the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the Atlantic Cooperation Partnership, the Pan American Institute of Geography and History, the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, and the International Leadership and Zinc Study Group.
The State Department said further reviews are underway.