Statement of Senator Welch
On
U.S. Withdrawal from United Nations Organizations and Programs
January 15, 2025
Submitted to the Congressional Record

Mr. President, last week we learned that President Trump has decided to withdraw the United States from 66 United Nations organizations, offices, and treaties that have had bipartisan support in Congress for decades. As far as I am aware, neither the White House nor the State Department consulted Congress about this extremist, and frankly self-defeating, decision. 

We all want to see the United Nations become more efficient and eliminate unnecessary duplication and waste. This may, indeed, be a time to reassess our participation in some of these organizations—something we should do every five to ten years. The world is constantly changing, and our priorities and funding decisions need to adapt. But for an Administration to take such a drastic, unilateral step is unprecedented, short-sighted, and certain to weaken U.S. global leadership and U.S. national security.   

Among the organizations and programs the President plans to withdraw from include the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the United Nations Population Fund, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UN Register of Conventional Arms, the International Tropical Timber Organization, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

I seriously doubt that President Trump is familiar with the work that any of these organizations do, or why the United States during Republican and Democratic administrations has been a leading member and supporter. While I will not recount each of their mandates and activities, I encourage my colleagues to do so. It would become readily apparent that their work is squarely in sync with U.S. national interests.  

Of course, if one believes, as the President and some of his closest advisors believe, that climate change is a hoax and that any program or organizations with the words “climate” or “nature” in its title should be eliminated, then it is not surprising that they would want to withdraw from the IUCN, the IPCC and the UNFCCC, which play key and complementary roles in monitoring and reporting on the health and environmental impacts of carbon emissions and the destruction of the Earth’s biodiversity. 

If you believe, as perhaps some in the Administration believe, that preventing sexual violence in conflict is not something that requires international cooperation, then there would be no need for the Office of the Special Representative. But Members of Congress and their staff who have met with the extraordinarily knowledgeable and dedicated occupants of that position over the years would strongly disagree. 

If you believe that the alarming proliferation of conventional weapons, including small arms like machine guns and shoulder fired missiles that are susceptible to ending up in the hands of terrorists and narcotics traffickers half way around the world is not a problem, then it’s understandable why some would favor withdrawing from the UN Register of Conventional Arms which provides transparency on arms transfers and helps to deter the traffic in illicit weapons.  But it’s as illogical as it is dangerous. 

And if you believe that it’s wrong to support an organization that provides life-saving, voluntary family planning information and services in countries where impoverished women and girls lack access to modern contraceptives, then it’s hypocritical but not surprising that some, for purely political and ideological reasons, would want to withdraw from the UN Population Fund even though it is prohibited by its own bylaws from supporting abortion.

The key point I want to make is that applying an ideological litmus test to these organizations and withdrawing from them without any consultation or debate will further isolate the United States. Our adversaries will fill the vacuum. There are many problems that cannot be solved by the United States or any other country alone: Global warming, the destruction of tropical forests, acidification of the oceans, rape as a weapon of war, illicit arms sales, and unsustainable population growth in countries that cannot feed their own people today. These daunting challenges require regional and global cooperation, and the active involvement of these UN organizations that provide the necessary expertise, data, strategies, and guidance. Their effectiveness is a function of the quality and active participation of their members, and without the United States their ability to carry out their mandates will suffer.

Congress understands this. In their bipartisan Fiscal Year 2026 conference agreement for National Security, the Department of State, and Related Programs that was published earlier this week, House and Senate appropriators recommend continued funding for most UN organizations and programs, as in past years. 

According to their bylaws, no UN member state, including the United States, can withdraw from some, if not many, of these organizations and treaties by simply declaring an intent to withdraw.  There is an interim period of months before a withdrawal takes effect.  Withdrawing from treaties may require an act of Congress.  It would be a serious mistake for the White House to go down that road absent a thorough assessment by the relevant executive agencies and congressional committees of jurisdiction of the pros and cons of doing so.  Otherwise, it will be just a matter of time before China or some other country occupies the dominant positions in not only these organizations but the UN Secretariate itself.  By then Donald Trump will be gone, but it will be too late to reverse course and future generations of Americans will pay the price.

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View this statement in the Congressional Record.