US withdraws from 66 multilateral organizations
Washington accuses these institutions, which include the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, of being ‘redundant’ and promoting ‘agendas contrary to our own’
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday withdrawing the United States from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — the basis for international cooperation in the fight against global warming — and the Alliance of Civilizations, created two decades ago following a proposal by Spain, as well as 64 other multilateral organizations, almost half of them linked to the United Nations.
The reason for this withdrawal from the 31 UN entities and 35 multilateral organizations not related to the United Nations is, according to the White House, that these institutions are “redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity.”
Withdrawing from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change would exclude the United States from international climate change negotiations. It could also strain relations with allies for whom combating global warming is a priority, at a time when Washington is boasting about the aggressiveness of its foreign policy following the military intervention in Venezuela that resulted in the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro.
The United States joined the UNFCCC in 1992, during the presidency of George H. W. Bush. The convention does not require cuts in emissions or pollution, but it sets the goal of stabilizing atmospheric pollution at a level low enough to prevent “dangerous human-caused interference with the climate system.”
The convention also established a process of negotiations between countries that eventually became the annual UN climate summits, and which has resulted, among other achievements, in the 1995 Kyoto Protocol that obliges countries to cut their emissions, and the 2015 Paris Agreements to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius, preferably 1.5ºC.
The Alliance of Civilizations, for its part, promotes cultural diversity, religious pluralism, and mutual respect. It was established in 2005 by then-UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, following a proposal from the Spanish prime minister at the time, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
In a statement, the White House specifies that the organizations it is leaving promote “radical climate policies, global governance and ideological programs that conflict with U.S. sovereignty and economic strength.”
In a separate statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that the withdrawal maintains “a key promise President Trump made to Americans — we will stop subsidizing globalist bureaucrats who act against our interests. The Trump Administration will always put America and Americans first.”
“We will not continue expending resources, diplomatic capital, and the legitimizing weight of our participation in institutions that are irrelevant to or in conflict with our interests,” the White House statement added. “We seek cooperation where it serves our people and will stand firm where it does not.”
Most of the affected organizations are UN agencies, commissions, and advisory panels that focus on climate, migration, labor rights, and other issues that the Trump administration believes are trying to promote diversity and equality at the expense of merit.
Among the organizations rejected by the U.S. government are the Global Forum on Terrorism, the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
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