US withdraws from UN bodies

The US withdrew from several UN bodies, including its Human Rights Council, and set up a broader review of funding for the multilateral organisation.

A boy chases a truck carrying humanitarian aid by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in southern Gaza. Picture: AFP

The US on Wednesday withdrew from several UN bodies, including its Human Rights Council, and set up a broader review of funding for the multilateral organisation.

Donald Trump’s executive order withdrew Washington from the UNHRC and the main UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), and said it would review involvement in UNESCO.

The moves were made in protest against what White House staff secretary Will Scharf ­described as “anti-American bias” at the UN agencies.

The latest order would appear to end all US participation in the 47-member council’s activities, which include reviews of countries’ human rights records and specific allegations of rights abuses.

Mr Trump highlighted the “tremendous potential” of the UN but said it is “not being well run”.

“It should be funded by everybody, but we’re disproportionate, as we always seem to be,” he said.

The President has long railed against Washington’s levels of funding of multilateral bodies, calling for other countries to ­increase their contributions, ­notably at military alliance NATO.

UNRWA is the chief aid agency for Palestinians, with many of the 1.9 million people displaced by the war in Gaza dependent on its deliveries for survival.

The US also froze money for the UN fund for a multinational security mission in Haiti in a move that would stop $US13.3m in pending aid.

The Kenya-run Multinational Security Support mission is ­designed to support Haiti’s authorities in their fight against criminal gangs, which control swaths of the country.

AFP