The US will quit the United Nations’ culture and education agency Unesco, the US state department has said, as Donald Trump continues to pull out of international institutions.
“Unesco 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,” a state department spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, said.
The move is a blow to the Paris-based global organisation, founded after the second world war to promote peace through international cooperation in education, science and culture.
The decision is part of the president’s second-term drive to pull the US out of a series of global bodies, including leaving the World Health Organization (WHO), halting funding to the Palestinian relief agency Unrwa and withdrawing from the UN human rights council, as part of a review of US participation in UN agencies.
A US withdrawal, to take effect in December 2026, will be a blow to Unesco’s work on education, culture and combating hate speech. But officials at the Unesco headquarters in Paris had been braced for a potential US departure during Trump’s second term. The US provides about 8% of the body’s total budget, making the financial impact of Washington’s departure less severe than for other organisations, such as the WHO, for which the US is by far the biggest financial backer.
The White House deputy spokesperson Anna Kelly told the New York Post: “President 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.”
In February, the White House had announced a 90-day review of the US membership of Unesco, saying in a statement that the global body had “demonstrated failure to reform itself, has continually demonstrated anti-Israel sentiment over the past decade, and has failed to address concerns over mounting arrears”.
Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is best known for designating world heritage sites including the Grand Canyon in the US and the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria. It also has a large cultural and education programme to promote intercultural dialogue.
The US was a founding member of Unesco in 1945, but this latest departure will be the third time it has quit.
Washington first withdrew in 1983 under Ronald Reagan, whose administration said the global organisation had anti-western bias and “has extraneously politicised virtually every subject it deals with”. It rejoined under George W Bush in 2003, with the White House saying it was happy with Unesco reforms.
Trump pulled the US out of Unesco in 2017, during his first term as president. His administration cited what it called “mounting arrears, the need for fundamental reform in the organisation, and continuing anti-Israel bias”.
The US returned to Unesco in 2023 under Joe Biden. The Biden administration said it was crucial to rejoin in order to counter “Chinese influence”. Beijing had become the organisation’s biggest financial backer in Washington’s absence. As a condition of readmission, the US agreed to pay about $619m in unpaid dues and make contributions to programmes supporting education access initiatives in Africa, Holocaust remembrance and journalists’ safety.
In 2011, Unesco voted to admit Palestine, which is not formally recognised by the US or Israel as a UN member state. The Barack Obama White House had cut Unesco contributions, resulting in the US owing millions in arrears to the organisation.
Audrey Azoulay, the director general of Unesco, said: “However regrettable, this announcement was anticipated and Unesco has prepared for it.”
Azoulay said she “deeply” regretted Trump’s decision to leave, saying the move “contradicts the fundamental principles of multilateralism”.
She said the reasons given by the US for leaving were the same as during Trump’s first term, and she disputed them. “These claims contradict the reality of Unesco’s efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism.”
Azoulay said Unesco had undertaken structural reforms and diversified its funding sources, so “the decreasing trend in the financial contribution of the US has been offset”. Unesco was not considering cutting jobs due to the US departure, she added.