U.S. President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Tuesday to reimpose “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran and to withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council and UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
In an apparent indication of the changes in his foreign policy outlook from his first term, during which he was advised by Iran hawks like John Bolton and Brian Hook, Trump said he was “torn” on signing the order against Iran.
“It’s very tough on Iran,” Trump said. “Hopefully, we are not going to have to use it very much.”
“I’m unhappy to do it,” he added.
Trump’s second executive order once again withdrew the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global body’s Geneva-based rights organization that critics accuse of being systemically anti-Israel.
The council’s agenda item 7 makes a review of the “human rights violations and implications of the Israeli occupation of Palestine” a standing feature of every council session. Israel is the only country in the world subject to such an agenda item.
The order also withdraws the United States from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and UNRWA.
Washington has had a complicated relationship with UNESCO since the latter admitted the Palestinian Authority as a member in 2011. U.S. law bars federal funds from being disbursed to any multilateral organization that admits the authority as a member, and Trump withdrew from UNESCO entirely in 2019.
The Biden administration rejoined in 2023, using a congressional waiver about combatting Chinese influence to fund a portion of U.S. dues and arrears to the cultural organization.
UNESCO has further been accused of anti-Israel bias over a 2016 resolution about the terminology surrounding the Temple Mount and the Western Wall Plaza, which it referred to as “Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram al-Sharif” and “al-Buraq Plaza ‘Western Wall Plaza,’” respectively.
The UNRWA order extends a ban on U.S. funding that Congress imposed in March after Israel alleged that some 30 employees of the aid organization participated directly in the Oct. 7 attacks in southern Israel and that nearly 1,500 of its 13,000 staff in Gaza are members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Trump said on Tuesday that he hopes that the order can spur reform throughout the U.N. system. “I’ve always felt that the U.N. has tremendous potential,” he said. “But it’s not being well run, to be honest.”
“They gotta get their act together,” he added.
