President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: AP
President Donald Trump is withdrawing the United States from a foundational climate treaty and the world’s main international warming evaluation physique, as half of a sweeping exit from the United Nations system, the White House introduced on Wednesday (January 7, 2026).
A complete of 66 international organizations were named in a White House memorandum as “contrary to the interests of the United States.”
Most notable amongst them is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the mum or dad treaty underpinning all main worldwide climate agreements.
Mr. Trump, who has thrown the total weight of his home coverage behind fossil fuels, has brazenly scorned the scientific consensus that human exercise is warming the planet, deriding climate science as a “hoax” on the UN’s high-level summit final September.
The UNFCCC was adopted on the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 and permitted later that 12 months by the U.S. Senate throughout George H.W. Bush’s presidency.
The U.S. Constitution permits presidents to enter treaties “provided two thirds of Senators present concur,” however it’s silent on the method for withdrawing from them — a authorized ambiguity that would invite challenges.
Mr. Trump has already withdrawn from the landmark Paris climate accord since returning to workplace, simply as he did throughout his first time period, a transfer that Democratic president Joe Biden later reversed.
Exiting the underlying treaty might introduce further authorized uncertainty round any future U.S. effort to rejoin.
“President Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the bedrock global treaty to tackle climate change is a new low and yet another sign that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation,” Rachel Cleetus of the Union of Concerned Scientists informed AFP.
The memo additionally directs the United States to withdraw from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN physique liable for assessing climate science, alongside different climate-related organizations together with the International Renewable Energy Agency, UN Oceans and UN Water.
As in his first time period, Mr. Trump has additionally withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement and from UNESCO — the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — which Washington had rejoined below Biden.
Mr. Trump has likewise pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization and sharply diminished international assist, slashing funding for quite a few UN businesses and forcing them to cut back operations on the bottom, together with the High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme.
Other outstanding our bodies named within the memo embody the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which works on sexual and reproductive well being and rights, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which focuses on commerce, funding and growth.
Speaking earlier than the General Assembly in September, Mr. Trump delivered a scathing broadside in opposition to the UN, saying it was “not even coming close to living up” to its potential.
Published – January 08, 2026 07:38 am IST