Marco Rubio explains US withdrawal from 66 international organizations
Photo: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (Getty Images)
The United States has decided to withdraw from 66 international organizations. Washington says most of them have become overly bureaucratic and no longer serve America's interests, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
He stated that withdrawing from 66 international organizations is a forced but necessary step to protect national interests and ensure fiscal responsibility.
He stated that the US played a key role in building the modern international system, but that it has, over time, become a bloated and ineffective network of institutions.
"What we term the 'international system' is now overrun with hundreds of opaque international organizations, many with overlapping mandates, duplicative actions, ineffective outputs, and poor financial and ethical governance," Rubio said.
He emphasized that even institutions that once performed useful functions have increasingly become inefficient bureaucracies, platforms for politicized activism, or instruments contrary to the US nation's best interests.
"The era of writing blank checks to international bureaucracies is over," the Secretary of State declared.
Following a review conducted by the Donald Trump administration, the 66 organizations were deemed "wasteful, ineffective, and harmful." Rubio stressed that continued US participation in such bodies "would be an abandonment of the national duty."
At the same time, he insisted that the US was not turning its back on the world but was simply rejecting an outdated model of multilateralism that treated the American taxpayer as the world's underwriter for a sprawling architecture of global governance.
Rubio added that the US is ready to lead reform efforts and support only those institutions that deliver real results.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum formalizing the US withdrawal from 66 international organizations. The document provides for an end to US funding and participation in 31 UN bodies and 35 organizations outside the UN system.
Among the UN entities the United States is leaving are the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Peacebuilding Fund.
The US is also withdrawing from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the second time.
In addition, the US withdraws from several European and international institutions, including the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, the Venice Commission, the International Renewable Energy Agency, and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.
