Trump withdraws US from UN Human Rights Council, permanently ends funding to UNRWA
The UN ‘has to get its act together,’ US president says, as he signs executive order calling for review of UNESCO, and UN institutions generally, that cites ‘anti-Israel bias’

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the United States will withdraw from the top UN human rights body and will not resume funding for UNRWA, the agency that provides services to Palestinians across the Middle East.
The US left the Geneva-based Human Rights Council last year, and it stopped funding UNRWA, after it came to light that a handful of the organization’s employees participated in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel that started the war in Gaza.
Further evidence provided by Israel has shown that UNRWA schools glorified terrorism and were in some cases led by terror operatives, and that Hamas and other terror groups have repeatedly used UNRWA infrastructure to plan and carry out attacks against Israel and Israeli troops.
Trump’s announcement came on the day he met with visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and later announced his intention for the US to take over the Gaza Strip and resettle its roughly 1.8 million residents elsewhere.
Trump’s executive orders on Tuesday also called for a review of American involvement in the Paris-based UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO, and a review of US funding for the United Nations in light of “the wild disparities in levels of funding among different countries.”
The United States, with the world’s largest economy, pays 22 percent of the UN’s regular operating budget, with China the second-largest contributor.
UNESCO will also “undergo a review under an expedited timeline due to its history of anti-Israel bias,” the White House said in a statement about the actions.
“I’ve always felt that the UN has tremendous potential,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s not living up to that potential right now… They’ve got to get their act together.”
He said the UN needs “to be fair to countries that deserve fairness,” adding that there are some countries, which he didn’t name, that are “outliers, that are very bad and they’re being almost preferred.”
Before Trump’s announcement, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated the Human Rights Council’s importance and UNRWA’s work in delivering “critical services to Palestinians.”
Trump also pulled the US out of the Human Rights Council in June 2018. His ambassador to the UN at the time, Nikki Haley, accused the council of “chronic bias against Israel” and pointed to what she said were human rights abusers among its members.
President Joe Biden renewed support for the Human Rights Council, and the US won a seat on the 47-nation body in October 2021. But the Biden administration announced in late September that the United States would not seek a second consecutive term.
Trump’s order on Tuesday has little concrete effect because the United States is already not a council member, said council spokesperson Pascal Sim. But like all other UN member countries, the US automatically has informal observer status and will still have a seat in the council’s ornate round chamber at the UN complex in Geneva.

UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide assistance for Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment, and it now serves some 2.5 million of their descendants in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, as well as 3 million more in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
The organization “has consistently shown itself to be anti-Semitic and anti-Israel,” the White House said.
Israel has long been critical of UNRWA, saying it perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by bestowing refugee status on the descendants of refugees — a designation not afforded to any other refugees in the world.
Before the October 7 Hamas attacks, UNRWA ran schools for Gaza’s 650,000 children as well as health facilities, and helped deliver humanitarian aid. It has continued to provide health care and been key to the delivery of food and other aid to Palestinians during the war.
The first Trump administration suspended funding to UNRWA in 2018, but Biden restored it. The US had been the biggest donor to the agency, providing it with $343 million in 2022 and $422 million in 2023.
In late 2024, the Knesset voted to ban UNRWA from operating in Israel, and the ban went into effect last month.