The United States has notified UNESCO of its intention to rejoin that UN agency nearly six years after the Trump administration withdrew from its membership.
A spokesman for the State Department indicated that the Undersecretary of State, Richard Verma, notified the director general of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, of a plan to reincorporate his country into that organization.
The plan is a result of lengthy negotiations between the State Department and UNESCO. He sets a timetable for paying off the US debt and for being reinstated on the executive board.
In October 2017, then-President Donald Trump announced that the United States would leave UNESCO over alleged anti-Israeli bias.
Soon after Tel Aviv followed suit. Washington had stopped funding the organization during Barack Obama’s tenure when Palestine became a full member.
One of President Biden’s foreign policy goals is to rejoin UNESCO in an effort to counter what he sees as “the growing influence of the Chinese government” on that agency’s agenda.
