Trump Withdraws US From UN Human Rights Council, Saying It Shields Violators

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 4 to again withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council and end U.S. funding to the U.N. agency dealing with Palestinian refugees.

The U.N. Human Rights Council, said the White House in a fact sheet to the press, “has not fulfilled its purpose and continues to be used as a protective body for countries committing horrific human rights violations.”

The White House noted that countries such as China and Iran are on the council despite their human rights violations. It also cited the council’s bias against Israel.

According to the council’s website, it is “responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and making recommendations on them.”

Trump also cut off U.S. assistance to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, which the White House said “has consistently shown itself to be antisemitic and anti-Israel.”

The order cited that there were UNRWA employees who participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel. Those employees have since been fired.

The White House also noted that Hamas uses UNRWA facilities to “store weapons and build tunnels.”

UNRWA, which began in 1950, says on its website that it “has a humanitarian and development mandate to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.”

UNRWA, which received $422 million from the United States as its largest donor, has rebuffed criticisms. In a December statement titled “Claims versus Facts,” the agency responded to several accusations, including the charge that “the institution as a whole is a haven for Hamas’s radical ideology.”

The agency said that from January 2022 to November 2024 “only 0.66 percent of UNRWA personnel out of 30,000 staff across all UNRWA Fields of Operations were identified as being implicated in breach of neutrality allegations.”

In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council and ceased funding to UNRWA. The Biden administration reversed those moves in 2021.

In the new executive order, Trump also ordered an expedited review of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, “due to its history of anti-Israel bias.”

The United States withdrew from UNESCO in 2018 and rejoined in 2023.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the United Nations for comment on the U.S. actions.

Finally, Trump ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio “to review and report to the president on which international organizations, conventions, or treaties promote radical or anti-American sentiment.”