Wednesday night’s presidential memorandum directs U.S. executive departments and agencies to take immediate steps to withdraw from dozens of international organizations, conventions and treaties that Washington views as contrary to U.S. interests.
According to the US memorandum, the decision affects 31 UN agencies and entities. These include:
- the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which supports maternal and child health and combats sexual and gender-based violence;
- the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which encourages global cooperation against climate change;
- the United Nations Democracy Fund, which finances and advises civil society projects for democracy;
- other UN Secretariat offices based in New York and elsewhere, such as those dealing with children in armed conflict and ending sexual violence as a weapon of war.
The list also includes four of the five UN regional commissions (Asia-Pacific, West Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean), which are key platforms for multilateral cooperation.
For UN entities, “withdrawal means ceasing to participate in or fund those entities to the extent permitted by law,” the memo states.
The work will continue: Guterres
Despite the announcement, the Secretary General stressed that the work of the Organization will continue.
“All United Nations entities will continue to implement their mandates as mandated by Member States,”the statement said.
“The United Nations has a responsibility to deliver for those who depend on us. We will continue to carry out our mandates with determination.”
Under the Charter of the United Nations, assessed contributions to the regular and peacekeeping budgets of the Organization are approved by the General Assembly and are considered binding obligations of all Member States.
For 2026, the General Assembly approved a regular budget of $3.45 billion (a sharp reduction from previous years), including a 15 percent reduction in financial resources and a nearly 19 percent cut in staffing.
A blow to climate cooperation
Responding specifically to the United States’ decision to withdraw from the UNFCCC, its executive secretary, Simon Stiell, said the move marked a step back in global climate cooperation.
“The United States was instrumental in creating the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, because both are entirely in its national interests,” Stiell said in a separate statement Thursday.
“While all other nations move forward together, This latest step back from global leadership, climate cooperation, and science can only harm the U.S. economy, jobs, and living standards as wildfires, floods, megastorms, and droughts rapidly worsen.. “It is a colossal own goal that will leave the United States less safe and less prosperous.”
Stiell noted that the UNFCCC would continue to work tirelessly, adding that “the doors remain open for the United States to re-enter in the future, as it has done in the past with the Paris Agreement.”