The Trump administration’s reckless inclination to withdraw from United Nations institutions is damaging United States foreign influence. Even after just a few months, the US withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council is worth taking a closer look at as the Trump team wraps up its review of international organizations in August.
The Trump administration symbolically withdrew from the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in February, accusing the 47-member body whose job it is to promote and protect human rights around the world of being ineffective and antisemitic.
The US is an observer state and not a member of the Council in 2025, which means it can do everything but vote. But the Trump administration dictated that US officials neither speak on the UN floor nor engage in negotiations. US diplomats in Geneva sat on their hands as 32 resolutions passed in March and 25 resolutions in June.
But, ironically, the US was not truly absent. Reuters reported that the Trump administration in fact actively negotiated a proposal for an evidence-collecting mechanism on Israel, the Council’s harshest available instrument. American diplomats quietly weighed in and likely coordinated with members of the US Congress, who sent a March 31 letter warning that the text’s supporters would face sanctions. The US was able to prevent the investigation mechanism. Disengagement this was not.
More broadly, the Trump administration’s complaints about the Council — and the UN generally — ignore that member states drive the agenda. The Trump executive order withdrawing the US from Council engagement gripes that “UNHRC has protected human rights abusers by allowing them to use the organization to shield themselves from scrutiny.”
Yet, the US failed to chime in on the renewal of experts on Nicaragua, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio called an “Enem(y) of humanity and they have created a migration crisis. . . . ” The US remained on the sidelines as Eritrea, recently named to the Trump “travel ban” list, attempted to stop reporting on its abuses. While human rights reporting may not fully address the severity of those crises, in many cases, the Council reports provide additional justification for the Trump administration’s actions against these oppressive governments.
In the past, the US has aggressively set the agenda in the Council, presenting a resolution on the Chinese human rights record in Xinjiang, for example. Similarly, the US jumpstarted discussions of transnational repression — a concern that the Trump team endorsed in a G7 statement just last month — which is used by China and others to attack dissidents overseas. Further, in 2024, the US and partners hosted an event on responsible AI, immediately preceding the adoption of a resolution that recognized the threat posed by misuse of commercial spyware. China and others now have an open field to draft new language without US pushback.
If you believe the Trump administration is serious about combating antisemitism, you might wonder why its officials walked away from active efforts in Geneva. In the last few years, the US hosted many events on antisemitism, including a workshop for more than 50 Geneva diplomats on concrete steps to counter the rise in this age-old hatred. In January, the US announced the formation of the first-ever coalition of countries to combat antisemitism at the Council, anticipating the Trump team would pick this up. Instead, they abandoned it.
And if you believe the Trump team’s seriousness about its Nobel Peace Prize aspirations, you might wonder why it would ignore multilateral tools that provide leverage in peace negotiations. The Commission of Inquiry on Syria was renewed in March and can contribute to stability and justice. The Trump team could use the investigatory mechanisms for Ukraine and Russia to look at abuses by all parties. Advocates voiced concern that Iran’s repressive regime would get a pass on its oppressive behavior at home if they made a deal on nukes. The Council mechanism is a chance to ensure, outside direct negotiations, that human rights, and thus domestic politics, are not part of any trade-off. The Trump team was silent on Venezuela, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ukraine (yet again) in Geneva.
Finally, the Trump administration has aggressively pushed to remove references to reproductive rights and gender from many UN resolutions in line with the president’s executive order on “defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth.” Luckily in this case, the US team was inactive in Geneva and the expert mechanism on LGBTQI+ rights was renewed in the last session.
The Council is not a panacea for the world’s human rights abuses. It has significant flaws. And it will continue with or without the US. But even in the short span of six months since Trump muzzled the US team in Geneva, it is clear that staying involved advances US interests and disengagement weakens US global influence.
If logic follows, and it may not, the Trump team is likely to find that engagement with the UN is needed for promoting US foreign policy priorities, no matter how the administration defines them. A knee-jerk approach to withdrawing from UN institutions is likely to reduce the global tools the US has at its disposal.
This is an opinion essay.
We welcome your comments on this article. What are your thoughts on US withdrawing from the Human Rights Council?
Michèle Taylor was the US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council from 2022 to 2025.
Allison Lombardo was a deputy assistant secretary for International Organization Affairs at the US Department of State from 2021-2025.
Interesting article with useful facts. However, I don’t undertstand phrases like “if you believe” and “if logic follows”. Trump is an ignorant and irrational leader for whom facts and logic do not exist. Just as worrying is the sycophantism that surrounds him.