US' UNESCO withdrawal an irresponsible move

The Donald Trump administration will withdraw the United States from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement on Tuesday.

The UN agency "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", Bruce said. "UNESCO's decision to admit the 'State of Palestine' as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to US policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization."

The US withdrew from UNESCO in 2017 during Trump's first administration citing similar reasons, though the situation has changed profoundly compared with eight years ago, and UNESCO today constitutes a rare forum for consensus on concrete and action-oriented multilateralism.

As UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said, the US administration's charges contradict "the reality of UNESCO's efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against anti-Semitism". That clearly indicates what the US administration disagrees with is not UNESCO's performance but fundamentally the multilateralism such international organizations embody, which it thinks deprives the US of the privilege to dictate the world.

Pulling the US out of UNESCO is just the administration's latest move to weaken support for UN agencies under a larger campaign to reshape US diplomacy as well as domestic policies, including the administration's embrace of fossil fuel energy.

Under the unilateral "America First" approach, the US administration has pulled out of the UN World Health Organization and the top UN human rights body, while reassessing its funding for others to ensure that continued US participation in international organizations focuses on "advancing American interests with clarity and conviction", as Bruce said.

So again that shows it is not UNESCO, or any other international body that the US is at odds with, but multilateralism, which demands it make compromises for the common good.

The world knows that UNESCO is dedicated to strengthening our shared humanity through the promotion of education, science, culture, and communication. It sets standards, produces tools and develops knowledge to create solutions for some of the greatest challenges of the time, and works to foster a world of greater equality and peace.

Protecting biodiversity, responding to artificial intelligence, advancing quality education, safeguarding heritage, and ensuring access to reliable information are some examples of the work that UNESCO does with its 194 member states across the globe.

The important roles UNESCO plays on multiple fronts related to some acute global challenges also explain why the US rejoined the agency twice in 2003 and 2023.

But it should be pointed out that even some domestic opponents of the US administration's decision are not true supporters of multilateralism and the UN-centered international relations. Under the previous administration the US rejoined UNESCO in 2023 citing concerns that China was filling the gap left by the US in UNESCO policymaking, notably in setting standards for artificial intelligence and technology education.

That claim still has its market in the US today.

"Unilaterally withdrawing the United States from UNESCO is another assault by the Trump administration on international cooperation and US global leadership," Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said. "This decision cedes more ground to US competitors, especially China, who will take advantage of America's absence to further shape the international system in their favor."

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the senior Democrat on the Republican-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called Trump's decision "shortsighted and a win for China", which she said became the largest financial contributor to UNESCO after Trump last withdrew from the agency.

Such a bipartisan anti-China mood exposes the biased political basis for the US' utilitarian and exploitative approach to international organizations. These politicians do not see the agencies as platforms for cooperation, coordination and communication but rather as pieces to be played in their geopolitical competition and zero-sum game.