By: Danielle Han

Desirée Cormier Smith Quoted

Read in Jezebel

On Wednesday, Trump signed Executive Order 14199, withdrawing the U.S. from dozens of international organizations, conventions, and agencies. The list includes the world’s oldest climate treaty, an apolitical counterterrorism forum, and multiple United Nations organizations dedicated to the advancement of women’s rights, family planning, maternal and child health, and preventing sexual violence in conflict. Cool. Not like the assumed leader of the free world should consider those issues really fucking important or anything.

Following the order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the institutions were deemed “redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run, captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own, or a threat to our nation’s sovereignty, freedoms, and general prosperity.” This is the same Rubio who recently declared abortion access and DEI as “human rights violations.”

“It is unconscionable for the U.S. to undercut programs that promote gender equality through the empowerment of women and girls, improve the safety and quality of life of people of African descent, and combat the disastrous impact of climate change,” Desirée Cormier Smith, Co-President of The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice and former U.S. Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice, said in a statement shared with Jezebel. “That the Trump Administration is withdrawing from organizations the U.S. doesn’t even contribute to under the guise of financial savings tells you everything you need to know. This is a political move meant to enforce an extreme anti-human rights agenda.”

Among the 66 groups is the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, better known as UN Women—the UN’s primary body dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls worldwide. Established by the General Assembly in 2010, UN Women coordinates global efforts to address gender-based inequality and is closely linked to other UN initiatives, including the annual Commission on the Status of Women. (In 2017, Trump sent both the far-right Heritage Foundation and an extremist anti-LGBTQ+ group labeled a hate organization to that very commission, held in New York.)

The U.S. has also withdrawn from the UN Population Fund, which focuses on sexual and reproductive health, as well as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. With this move, we’re officially the first country to formally abandon the climate agreement, which was signed in 1992, despite being the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases.

And leaving these organizations is pretty much akin to making an aquarium into fish soup; it can’t be undone. To become a member state of a convention or ratify a treaty, the U.S. requires a two-thirds vote by the Senate, which currently holds a slim 53-47 GOP majority. And given that nearly a quarter of Congress didn’t even believe in climate change in 2024, reversing the extensive damage of one destructive president will be a Herculean task.