Why did US leave UNESCO? Why does it want to rejoin cultural and scientific agency?

Six years after Donald Trump withdrew from UNESCO, the United States wants back in. Washington, a founding member of the UN cultural and scientific agency, will also pay it more than $600 million in back dues. But why did the US leave UNESCO in the first place? And why does it want to rejoin the agency? Let’s take a closer look: Why did US leave UNESCO? The United States, a founding member of UNESCO, was a major contributor to UNESCO’s budget until 2011 – when the body admitted Palestine as a member state. That triggered an end to the contributions – which Washington paid around $75 million or around 22 percent of UNESCO’s budget – under US law. But the US didn’t leave the group in 2011. In 2017, then president Donald Trump announced that the United States and Israel were withdrawing from UNESCO due to its ‘bias’ against the Jewish state. The United States officially left the agency in 2018. Israel has long accused the United Nations of anti-Israel bias. In 2012, over Israeli objections, the state of Palestine was recognised as a nonmember observer state by the UN General Assembly. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip — territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for an independent state. Israel says the Palestinians’ efforts to win recognition at the UN are aimed at circumventing a negotiated settlement and meant to pressure Israel into concessions. Not first go-around Interestingly, this is the second time the United States has withdrawn from UNESCO. Washington in 1984 under then president Ronald Reagan withdrew the US from UNESCO because it viewed the agency as mismanaged, corrupt and used to advance Soviet interests.

In 2003, after a 20-year absence, Washington rejoined the group under then president George W Bush.

This came as the US wanted to “emphasize a message of international cooperation” in the backdrop of it launching its Iraq war. [caption id=“attachment_9806901” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] George W Bush rejoined UNESCO in 2003.[/caption] The US and UNESCO have had a turbulent relationship over the past four decades after sparring mainly over ideological issues during the Cold War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more recently. Why does it want to rejoin the agency? To counter China’s influence. Officials in Washington say the decision to return was motivated by concern that China is filling the gap left by the US in UNESCO policymaking –  notably in setting standards for artificial intelligence and technology education around the world. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March said the US absence from UNESCO was letting China write rules on artificial intelligence. “I very much believe we should be back in UNESCO – again, not as a gift to UNESCO, but because things that are happening at UNESCO actually matter,” Blinken told a Senate committee when he presented the budget.

“They are working on rules, norms and standards for artificial intelligence. We want to be there,” he said.

In March, when the budget for the next fiscal year was presented, Under Secretary of State for Management John Bass said the administration believed that rejoining UNESCO would help the US in its global rivalry with China, which has invested large sums into UN organisations. Rejoining UNESCO will “help us address a key opportunity cost that our absence is creating in our global competition with China,” he said. “If we’re really serious about the digital-age competition with China, from my perspective, in a clear-eyed set of interests, we can’t afford to be absent any longer from one of the key fora in which standards around education for science and technology are set," Bass said. “And there are a number of other examples in that space of UNESCO’s mission where our absence is noticed and where it undercuts our ability to be as effective in promoting our vision of a free world,” he said. Axios quoted a state department official as saying that Washington privately contacted UNESCO to alert them to its decision. A source told the outlet Washington intends to run for a seat on UNESCO’s executive board in the November elections. The source added that a club of of Western nations had agreed to keep a seat ready for the US in case it pulled the trigger. The Biden administration said when it took office that it intended to rejoin UNESCO. [caption id=“attachment_11874511” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The Joe Biden administration said it wanted to rejoin UNESCO when it took office[/caption] The US Congress in December, then fully controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, paved the way for the United States to restore funding, setting aside $150 million in the budget. The 8 June letter from Deputy Secretary of State for Management Richard Verma proposed “a plan for the US to rejoin the organisation,” the department said. “Any such action would require concurrence by UNESCO’s current membership, and it is our understanding that UNESCO leadership will convey our proposal to the membership in the coming days,” the department said in a statement. Under the plan, the US government would pay its 2023 dues plus $10 million in bonus contributions this year earmarked for Holocaust education, preserving cultural heritage in Ukraine, journalist safety, and science and technology education in Africa, Verma’s letter says. ‘Strong act of confidence’ The decision is a big boost to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known for its World Heritage program as well as projects to fight climate change and teach girls to read.

The move will face a vote by UNESCO’s member states in the coming weeks.

But approval seems a formality after the resounding applause that greeted the announcement in UNESCO’s Paris headquarters Monday. Not a single country raised an objection to the return of a country that was once the agency’s single biggest funder. Some member states want an extraordinary session to be held quickly to decide. “It is a strong act of confidence in UNESCO and in multilateralism,” said its director general Audrey Azoulay when she informed representatives of the body’s member states in Paris of Washington’s decision to rejoin. Azoulay, a former French culture minister who has headed UNESCO since 2017, has made it a priority of her mandate to bring the US back. In a letter to Azoulay seen by AFP, Richard Verma, the US deputy secretary of state for management and resources, said Washington was “grateful” to Azoulay for progress on “significant issues”, including “decreasing focus on politicised debate”. China’s ambassador to UNESCO Yang Jin said Monday that Beijing would not oppose the United States’ return, saying the body “needs every member state to join hands to fulfil its missions” and that China “is willing to work with all the member states”. Ambassadors from many other countries worldwide, from Peru to Djibouti to Poland, hailed the news, with some such as Germany saying Washington should be readmitted “as soon as possible”. “I am confident that most of the member states will work on the return of the US,” Japan’s ambassador to UNESCO Atsuyuki Oike said, calling American participation “indispensable”. Palestine, Israel issues unresolved The US decision doesn’t address the status of Palestine. While it’s a member of UNESCO, on the ground, the Palestinians are further away from independence than ever. There have not been serious peace talks in over a decade, and Israel’s new government is filled with hardliners who oppose Palestinian independence.

The Palestinian ambassador to UNESCO didn’t comment on the US decision.

UNESCO director Azoulay, who is Jewish, won broad praise for her personal efforts to build consensus among Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli diplomats around sensitive UNESCO resolutions. She met with Democrats and Republicans in Congress to explain those efforts. Thanks to those bipartisan negotiations, she expressed confidence that the US decision to return is for the long term, regardless of who wins next year’s presidential election. “What’s happened over the last years meant that UNESCO matters,” she said. “And when you’re absent from that … you lose something. You lose something for your influence in the world, but also for your own national interest.” A UNESCO diplomat expressed hope that the return of the US would bring “more ambition, and more serenity” — and energize programs to regulate artificial intelligence, educate girls in Afghanistan and chronicle victims of slavery in the Caribbean. The diplomat said that the agency would also “welcome” Israel back if it wanted to rejoin. There was no immediate response from the Israeli government. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .