Trump Withdraws U.S. from UNESCO, Delivering Blow to UN Culture & Education Agency

The U.S. will leave the United Nations’ culture and education agency, UNESCO, the State Department announced on Tuesday. This is part of Donald Trump’s plan to pull back from the international organizations.

A State Department spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, said, “UNESCO supports social and cultural ideas that don’t match our America First policy. It also focuses too much on the UN’s global development goals, which we don’t agree with.”

This decision is a setback for UNESCO, which is based in Paris and was created after World War II to promote peace through with global cooperation in education, science, and culture.

The U.S. will leave UNESCO, the United Nations’ agency for culture and education, by December 2026. This is part of President Trump’s second-term plan to withdraw from several global organizations. He has already pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization (WHO), stopped funding the Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA), and left the UN Human Rights Council. These moves are part of a broader review of U.S. involvement in UN agencies.

The U.S. decision is a setback for UNESCO’s work in education, culture, and fighting hate speech. However, officials at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters had expected this move, especially during Trump’s second term. The U.S. funds around 8% of UNESCO’s budget, so while the loss is significant, it won’t hit UNESCO as hard as it did the WHO, where the U.S. was the biggest funder.

White House deputy spokesperson Anna Kelly told the New York Post that Trump decided to leave UNESCO because it “supports woke, divisive cultural and social causes” that don’t reflect what Americans voted for in the last election.

Back in February, the White House began a 90-day review of U.S. membership in UNESCO. Officials said the agency had failed to reform, shown ongoing bias against Israel, and let the U.S. debt pile up.

UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is best known for naming world heritage sites like the Grand Canyon in the U.S. and Palmyra in Syria. It also runs large cultural and education programs to encourage understanding between different cultures.

The U.S. was a founding member of UNESCO in 1945, but this will be the third time it leaves. The first was in 1983 under President Reagan, who said the organization was biased and overly political. The U.S. rejoined in 2003 under President George W. Bush after reforms were made.

Trump also pulled with the U.S. out in 2017 during his first term, citing unpaid dues, the need for reform, and anti-Israel bias. The U.S. rejoined again in 2023 under President Biden, who said it was important to counter China’s growing influence. At that time, China had become UNESCO’s largest funder. As a condition to rejoin, the U.S. agreed to pay around $619 million in back payments and support programs like education in Africa, Holocaust remembrance, and journalist safety.

In 2011, UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member, even though the U.S. and Israel do not officially recognize it as a UN member state. In response, the Obama administration cut funding, which is added to the U.S.’s growing debt to the agency.

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