The far-left government of President Biden chose to reinstate America in UNESCO, according to an announcement from the agency this week.
Under the leadership of President Trump, the United States withdrew from the organization in 2019 on the basis that it routinely promoted the causes of Palestinian terrorist organizations and unfairly criticized Israel, frequently at the expense of safeguarding cultural and historical landmarks. Israel left UNESCO in 2019 as well. The Trump administration decided to leave the organization in 2017, but it had to wait until its membership had officially expired.
Trump’s foreign policy included drastically reducing American funding and participation in the UN, which included pulling the US from the Human Rights Council as well as World Health Organization (W.H.O.), whose members are primarily brutal dictatorships.
The Associated Press reports that America’s return to this ancient preservation body will also bring back $600 million in financing that Washington didn’t pay after departing the agency. The agency wasn’t successful to stop, among other catastrophes, the widespread destruction of irreplaceable artifacts and historical sites by the Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq in the past decade. The United States has always been one of the leading donors to UN initiatives.
Audrey Azoulay, the current director-general of UNESCO, hailed Biden’s choice as a “strong measure of confidence” in her agency.
“This is a powerful expression of faith in multilateralism and in UNESCO. Not just in the Organization’s core missions of culture, education, research, and information, but also in how this mission is now carried out,” Azoulay remarked.
Biden decided to rejoin the contentious organization, according to unnamed “U.S. officials,” because his administration is worried about Chinese influence there, “particularly in setting guidelines for AI and education in technology all around the world.” In the last two years, UNESCO has escalated its attempts to strengthen its influence in those sectors and has invested in lobbying nations to enact international speech regulations that supersede national laws in order to fight purported “misinformation.”
The massive “omnibus” bill Congress passed at the end of the year, which included a provision granting the president waiver authority over a law prohibiting the United States from funding UN organizations that acknowledge the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as an official member, provided the way for Biden to be able to return to UNESCO. The legislation forbids financing from the US for any UN organization that admits a non-state entity as a member state.
