What to Know About the U.S. Move to Withdraw From UNESCO

The State Department announced on Tuesday that the United States would withdraw from UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, by the end of 2026.

UNESCO is the third U.N. agency that President Trump has pulled out of this year, following the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Rights Council. The latest move reflects his distaste for multilateralism and deep distrust of international institutions, especially those connected to the United Nations.

This is not the first time the United States has broken ties with UNESCO. A congressional mandate cut off U.S. funding for UNESCO under the Obama administration after the agency included Palestine as a full member. It then announced that it was pulling out completely during President Trump’s first term in 2017. The Biden administration reversed that decision and rejoined in 2023, arguing that leaving an empty chair at UNESCO created a vacuum that competing powers, most notably China, were filling.

What is UNESCO?

UNESCO, or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, is headquartered in Paris, and is best known for designating World Heritage sites. It has designated more than 1,200 of them since 1972, including Yosemite National Park in California and the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan. It also keeps an “intangible cultural heritage” list of humanity’s most worthy creations, like the French baguette and opera singing in Italy.

The organization is also known for its educational programs and promotes sex education, literacy, clean water and equality for women. It also helps to set standards on a range of issues, including ocean protection and the ethics of artificial intelligence.

Why is the United States cutting ties now?

Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement that continued involvement in UNESCO is “not in the national interest of the United States.”

Ms. Bruce accused the organization of promoting “divisive social and cultural causes” and of maintaining 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.”

Some Jewish organizations disagreed with the decision to withdraw. Ted Deutsch, chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, said in a statement, “Continued American leadership and engagement is critical to ensuring that UNESCO does not once again become a platform for anti-Israel animus.”

The decision to leave UNESCO comes after decades of rocky relations between successive U.S. administrations and the organization.

The United States withdrew from the agency in 1984, during the Cold War, because the Reagan administration deemed UNESCO too susceptible to Moscow’s influence and overly critical of Israel. President George W. Bush pledged in 2002 to rejoin the organization partly to show his openness to international cooperation in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

In 2011, during the Obama administration, the United States stopped funding for UNESCO after it voted to include Palestine as a full member. Laws passed years earlier had mandated a complete cutoff of American financing to any United Nations agency that accepted Palestine on such terms. The move deprived UNESCO of nearly a fifth of its budget and forced it to slash programs.

In 2018, the Trump administration withdrew from the organization completely, citing anti-Israel bias, but the United States remained a nonmember observer. In 2023, the Biden administration decided to rejoin.

How will the U.S. withdrawal affect the organization?

Officials at UNESCO lamented the U.S. decision to withdraw but said the financial impact on the organization would be minimal. Audrey Azoulay, its director general, said in a statement that the U.S. decision was “anticipated, and UNESCO has prepared for it.”

Ms. Azoulay said that UNESCO had diversified its funding sources over the past few years, relying more heavily on voluntary contributions from member states and from private contributors.

Today, the U.S. financial contribution accounts for only 8 percent of UNESCO’s total budget, she said, adding that the organization was not considering any layoffs. In the first quarter of 2025, the United States was still the largest single funder, followed by China.

Has UNESCO been pulled into other disputes?

UNESCO member states have used the organization to rehash historical disputes, fight over competing claims to cultural heritage and challenge the international legitimacy of their rivals.

China and India have filed rival claims over Tibetan medicine; Japan withheld funding after documents on the 1937 Nanjing massacre in China were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World list; and Serbia fought to prevent Kosovo from becoming a member.

Regional rivalries have also been on display during leadership elections. In 2017, Qatar, Egypt and Lebanon each fielded a candidate instead of uniting behind a common bid for an Arab country to assume the directorship of UNESCO. The agency will hold its next leadership election in November.