Smart Move, Long Overdue: U.S. Announces It Will Withdraw From UNESCO (Again)

 

Washington, D.C. – Today, Independent Women’s Forum Foreign Policy Fellow Claudia Rosett issued the following statement in response to President Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S would join the U.S. would leave the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); remaining a member until December 31, 2018.

Ms. Rosett is an award-winning journalist who has reported over the past three decades from Asia, the former Soviet Union, Latin America and the Middle East. She is widely credited with groundbreaking reporting on the United Nations and its dealings with despotic regimes. She is the author of “What to Do About the U.N.” (Encounter).

“Withdrawing from UNESCO is a good move by the U.S. administration,” stated Independent Women’s Forum Foreign Policy Fellow Claudia Rosett. “It sends an important message to the rest of the United Nations system, that the U.S. does not want to be in the business of bankrolling or otherwise supporting international organizations the pursue policies damaging to America’s democratic interests and allies.”

“UNESCO was founded to serve as a cultural pillar of a free and peaceful world order. Housed in lavish headquarters in Paris, and prone to pandering to tyrants and bigots, UNESCO has failed profoundly and repeatedly to live up to its noble mission, That is why President Ronald Reagan withdrew U.S. membership in 1984. Since the U.S. returned in 2002 under President Bush, UNESCO has again reverted to policies of bigotry and anti-Americanism. UNESCO’s decision in 2011 to admit the Palestinian Authority to full membership triggered U.S. laws that cut off funding to UNESCO (amounting to some $80 million per year); UNESCO responded by lobbying the U.S. to waive its own laws in order to accommodate and bankroll UNESCO.

“Withdrawing is by far the better option, and it bears noting that the U.S. survived quite well from 1984-2002 without membership in UNESCO (a period in which the U.S. prevailed in the Cold War), and will again be better off without it.”

 

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