President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that halts US participation in several UN agencies and initiates a comprehensive review of US financial contributions to the world body.
In signing the executive order, Mr Trump said he supports the UN but that it has to “get their act together”.
“They've got to be fair to countries that deserve fairness. There are some countries, as you know, that are outliers, that are really bad, and they're being almost preferred as countries to those that do their job,” Mr Trump said at the White House.
“They're going to end up losing their credibility, like other organisations, and then they're going to be nothing. The potential of the United Nations, and not everybody agrees with me on this, the potential of the United Nations is fantastic.”
His executive order halts US participation in the UN Human Rights Council and the UN relief agency for Palestinians, UNRWA. It also initiates a review of its involvement with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
The Secretary General's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told The National from day one, US support for the United Nations has saved countless lives and advanced global security and the UN chief looks forward to continuing his productive relationship with President Trump and the US government to “strengthen that relationship in today’s turbulent world”.
“The Secretary General has worked tirelessly to implement many reforms in the Secretariat to increase efficiency, impact and innovation,” He said. “As President Trump has indicated, the UN plays a crucial role in taking on big challenges so that individual countries don’t have to do it on their own at far greater expense”.
During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Mr Trump had withdrawn the US from the 47-member UNHRC, claiming it had a disproportionate focus on Israel and included countries with poor human rights records. The US was not a member of the Geneva-based council until president Joe Biden re-engaged in 2021, with the US serving a term from 2022 to 2024. In October 2024, the Biden administration decided not to stand for a second term and remain as an observer state at the HRC with no voting rights.
Mr Trump also halted funding to UNRWA in 2018, demanding unspecified reforms and urging Palestinians to return to peace talks with Israel. The agency, which provides essential services to millions of Palestinian refugees, faced significant financial strain as a result. Mr Biden later restored funding to UNRWA in 2021.
Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s spokeswoman, said the UN agency has not been receiving aid funding from the US since January last year.
Ms Touma said the agency’s financial situation is expected to worsen, even before an anticipated decision by Mr Trump to continue the halt to its funding.
“The financial health of UNRWA is very, very bad and it got worse over the past few months and is expected to continue to worsen,” she told reporters at UN headquarters in Geneva.
Despite the challenges, Palestine’s representative to the UN, Riyad Mansour, highlighted the strong international support for the agency.
“Although it will create additional hardship for the community of Palestinian refugees, there are so many countries standing with us,” he told reporters.
He noted that more than 125 countries are part of a coalition defending UNRWA at the UN, many of which are major donors. “They pay, they pledge, they will continue to pay and to defend UNRWA, to carry its mandate until there is a just solution to the question of the refugees,” Mr Mansour added.
Pakistan's UN envoy, Munir Akram, told The National defunding UNRWA or any other humanitarian agency, “would be very disappointing, because lives are at stake”.
Israel's UN ambassador, Danny Danon, hailed Mr Trump's executive order on the UN Human Rights Council and UNRWA, thanking him for his decision.
“The Human Rights Council has not been promoting human rights for a long time – it is aggressively promoting extreme anti-Semitism,” Mr Danon said. “At the same time, UNRWA has long lost its status as an independent humanitarian organisation, and has turned into a terrorist authority controlled by Hamas under the guise of a humanitarian agency. Every dollar that goes to UNRWA helps terrorism.”
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