US President Donald Trump has pulled the US out of 66 international organisations. President Donald Trump is withdrawing the United States from a foundational climate treaty as part of a sweeping exit from collective global action, the White House announced on Wednesday. A total of 66 global organisations and treaties – roughly half affiliated with the United Nations – were listed in a White House memorandum as “contrary to the interests of the United States.” Other prominent bodies named in the memo include the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN Women, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Trump also left the International Law Commission. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the organisations were driven by “progressive ideology” and were actively seeking to “constrain American sovereignty.” “From DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) mandates to ‘gender equity’ campaigns to climate orthodoxy, many international organisations now serve a globalist project,” he said. “What is the purpose of the United Nations?” asked Trump in a wide-ranging speech, whose litany of complaints extended even to a broken escalator and teleprompter at the UN’s New York headquarters.
Most notable among them is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent treaty underpinning all major international climate agreements. Trump, who has thrown the full weight of his domestic policy behind fossil fuels, has openly scorned the scientific consensus that human activity is warming the planet, deriding climate science as a “hoax.” The UNFCCC was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 and approved later that year by the US Senate during George HW Bush’s presidency. The US Constitution allows presidents to enter treaties “provided two-thirds of Senators present concur,” but it is silent on the process for withdrawing from them – a legal ambiguity that could invite court challenges.
