Trump To Withdraw United States From UN Human Rights Council

President Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order to withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) this afternoon, according to POLITICO. The executive order will also prohibit future funding for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

The factsheet announcing the withdrawal accused the UNHRC of not fulfilling its purpose and being a “protective body for countries committing horrific human rights violations.”

“The UNHRC has demonstrated consistent bias against Israel, focusing on it unfairly and disproportionately in council proceedings,” the document says. “In 2018, the year President Trump withdrew from the UNHRC in his first administration, the organization passed more resolutions condemning Israel than Syria, Iran, and North Korea combined.”

Trump withdrew from the UNHRC during his first term in 2018. At the time, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley accused the council of scapegoating nations with clean human rights records and propping up the world’s worst human rights abusers.

Some of the world’s worst human rights abusers currently serve on the UNHRC, including Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, China, and Qatar.

The Biden administration paused funding to UNRWA following reports that some of its staffers participated in the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel.

Israel banned UNRWA from operating on Israeli land last month. Several recently released hostages from Gaza said they were held in UNRWA facilities. UNRWA has also come under fire for its schools promoting hatred of Jews and promoting Palestinian dependency on the global community by granting refugee status to the descendants of refugees, which no other group is granted.

In December, the watchdog UN Watch released a report revealing that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has ignored some of the world’s most oppressive regimes. The report showed that Türk condemned the United States more than China, North Korea, Cuba, and Qatar combined. It added that Türk has not touched on the human rights violations in Cuba, North Korea, Algeria, Eritrea, Mauritania, Lebanon, and Qatar, but has condemned American allies such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, France, and Israel.