Donald Trump: US President orders another withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council

DER SPIEGEL Donald Trump: US President orders another withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council 28 minutes • 2 minutes reading time The UN Human Rights Council monitors compliance with human rights worldwide. Now President Trump is ordering the USA to withdraw from the body. Not for the first time. US President Donald Trump has ordered the USA to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council again. He signed a corresponding decree on Tuesday. It is not the first time that the USA has withdrawn from the body: Trump had already ordered the withdrawal in 2018 during his first term in office. The US government at the time justified the decision by saying that the body was not worthy of its name. It was a "cesspool of political bias". Trump's successor Joe Biden reversed the move: in 2021 the USA rejoined the Human Rights Council. Monitoring human rights around the world The UN Human Rights Council monitors whether human rights are being observed around the world. It deals with issues such as racism, executions and the rights of people with disabilities. Independent human rights experts regularly examine the situation in the countries of the United Nations. The experts documented, for example, that poison gas was used in the civil war in Syria in 2018. Last year, the human rights experts reported that Israel had deliberately destroyed the health sector in the Gaza Strip. They spoke of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Trump wants to dissolve the American development agency In addition to the decision on the Human Rights Council, Trump confirmed that he wants to dissolve the development agency USAID. The institution will be incorporated into the State Department as part of a major restructuring. To this end, USAID should be comprehensively reformed and the workforce reduced. Expenditure could thus be aligned with Trump's "America First" policy. The Trump administration had previously massively hindered the agency's work. Online access was deleted and employees were prevented from entering the building. Billionaire and Trump advisor Elon Musk, who is responsible for the planned downsizing of the state apparatus, is doing a "great job," said Trump. There is a lot of fraud in the agency.