OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
4:42 PM – Tuesday, July 22, 2025
On Tuesday, The Trump administration announced that the United States will be exiting the United Nations (UN) Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) — expressing that the organization’s goals are not in the national interest of the United States.
“President Donald 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. This president will always put America First and ensure our country’s membership in all international organizations aligns with our national interests,” White House Deputy Spokesperson Anna Kelly stated on Tuesday.
Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar also praised the decision, describing it as a vital measure aimed at advancing justice and safeguarding Israel’s entitlement to equitable treatment within the United Nations system—an entitlement that has too often been undermined by political bias in this forum.
The development follows a series of actions by the GOP administration that have generated significant controversy within the community of globalist leaders, particularly at the United Nations.
The U.S.- and Israel-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has faced strong criticism from the UN and various international organizations. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini previously called GHF an “abomination” and said its aid points deliver “starvation and gunfire.”
Another example lies with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who has since voiced his own “concerns” over the Trump administration’s reductions in foreign aid. He claimed that such cuts would be “especially devastating” for the world’s most vulnerable populations, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce stated that the decision to withdraw reflects the assessment that “continued involvement with UNESCO is not in the national interest of the United States.”
“UNESCO works to advance divisive social and cultural causes and maintains an outsized focus on the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy,” the statement read. “UNESCO’s decision to admit the ‘State of Palestine’ as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.”
President Trump formally withdrew the United States from UNESCO in October 2017 during his first term as well, a decision later reversed by former Democrat President Joe Biden, who rejoined the agency in 2023.
At the time of the initial withdrawal, the State Department cited concerns nearly identical to those raised in the current decision—suggesting that UNESCO has made insufficient progress in addressing the underlying issues that prompted the original exit.
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