In a sweeping move, the United States has formally withdrawn from 66 international organisations deemed “wasteful, ineffective or harmful” by the US President Donald Trump administration.
The Presidential Memoranda, announced yesterday and building on an executive order signed by Trump, marks a significant escalation in the “America First” agenda, targeting bodies accused of promoting globalist ideologies at the expense of US taxpayers.
The White House memorandum directs all executive departments and agencies to cease immediately participation and funding for these entities, which include 31 United Nations-affiliated groups and 35 others outside the UN framework.
Officials estimate the withdrawals will save considerable money in annual contributions, redirecting resources towards domestic priorities such as border security and infrastructure.
“American taxpayers have spent billions on these organisations with little return, while they often criticise US policies, advance agendas contrary to our values, or waste taxpayer dollars by purporting to address important issues but not achieving any real results,” the White House said in a fact sheet.
Republicans have long accused international organisations of pushing “climate hysteria” and “woke gender policies” at the expense of US taxpayers.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated the move fulfilled a key promise of Trump’s.
“The Trump Administration has found these institutions to be 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,” Rubio added.
Today, President Trump announced the U.S. is leaving 66 anti-American, useless, or wasteful international organizations. Review of additional international organizations remains ongoing.
These withdrawals keep a key promise President Trump made to Americans – we will stop…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) January 8, 2026
Gina McCarthy, a top climate adviser to former US president Joe Biden’s White House, said it was “a short-sighted, embarrassing and foolish decision”.
“This administration is forfeiting our country’s ability to influence trillions of dollars in investments, policies and decisions that would have advanced our economy and protected us from costly disasters wreaking havoc on our country,” she said.
Manish Bapna, President and CEO of the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC), said Trump’s decision to exit the UNFCCC was an “unforced error” and “self-defeating” as it will further hamper the US ability to compete with China, which is increasingly dominant in the world’s burgeoning clean energy technology industries.
The NRDC describes itself as “working to safeguard the earth its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends”.
The White House list encompasses a wide array of bodies focused on climate change, migration, gender equality and environmental conservation — areas frequently criticised by conservatives as vehicles for left-wing activism.
Among the most prominent withdrawals are:
- The UNFCCC, the backbone of international efforts to combat global warming, including the Paris Agreement which the US had previously exited under Trump’s first term.
- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), accused by administration officials of peddling “alarmist science” to justify wealth redistribution from developed nations.
- The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), which promotes feminist policies worldwide and has been linked to progressive campaigns on abortion.
- The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), responsible for family planning and population programmes, often embroiled in controversies over abortion access and demographic engineering.
- The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Solar Alliance, both seen as pushing a “green energy boondoggle” that disadvantages American fossil fuel industries.
Other notable exits include the UN Democracy Fund, the Peacebuilding Commission and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance — organisations derided by the Trump administration as meddling in sovereign elections under the guise of promoting democracy.
Organisations such as the Global Counterterrorism Forum connected climate change with violent extremism and terrorism while The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) warned of political developments in the US that are shaking long-held assumptions about democratic resilience and multilateralism in its latest report.
The IDEA also leans in on studies from Freedom House, an NGO supported by The Open Society Foundation of Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros.
The full list of 66 organisations spans obscure technical bodies such as the International Cotton Advisory Committee and the International Lead and Zinc Study Group — dismissed as “bureaucratic relics” — to high-profile ones including the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫
To all the women who have been told that they are:
too loud,
too emotional,
too ambitious,
too difficult,
too bossy,
too much,
We hear you. We believe in you. We stand with you.
Let's fight the stereotypes together #ForAllWomenAndGirls. pic.twitter.com/UfG2vvv8tr— UN Women (@UN_Women) January 1, 2026
