While the world was dealing with horrific news about an ICE agent fatally shooting an American civilian in the streets of Minneapolis on Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s administration was withdrawing the US from 66 international groups, conventions, and treaties, including 31 United Nations-affiliated organizations. Several of them are devoted to arts, culture, historic preservation, and freedom of expression.
The withdrawal was announced in a presidential memorandum that stated that these organizations were “contrary to the interests of the United States.” The president had asked the Secretary of State Marco Rubio to conduct a review in a February 2025 executive order. Rubio asserted that many of the organizations are “dominated by progressive ideology.”
In addition to organizations devoted to climate change, counterterrorism, sustainable development, justice and the rule of law are cultural bodies such as the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA), the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, the Freedom Online Coalition, and the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
The ICCROM and the IFACCA did not immediately answer requests for comment.
Reactions varied depending on whether they were coming from Trump’s critics or his allies.
“This is a ridiculous and dangerous, thoughtless and malicious action,” Nina Schwalbe, a senior scholar at the Georgetown Center for Global Policy and Politics, told NPR, which also quotes Brett Schaefer, a U.N. expert at the center-right American Enterprise Institute, who “would have liked to see the U.S. withdraw from more organizations.”
Artists at Risk Connection, an international organization committed to promoting and advancing the right to artistic freedom worldwide, released a statement on Thursday that “expresses deep concern” over the decision.
“At a moment when artists around the world are facing escalating censorship, digital surveillance, forced displacement, and gender-based violence, international cooperation is essential,” said Julie Trébault, executive director of Artists at Risk Connection. “U.S. disengagement from institutions that uphold freedom of expression, artistic freedom, cultural rights, and the rule of law weakens the global protective frameworks on which artists and cultural workers depend.
“For artists in immediate danger, those in exile, women artists, and others facing censorship, surveillance, or violence, the erosion of multilateral safeguards has tangible and immediate consequences,” says Trébault. “The vacuum this withdrawal creates also opens space for authoritarian actors to further repress artists and cultural workers globally.”
The latest round of withdrawals continues the Trump administration’s pattern of isolationism, which has seen it withdraw from UNESCO, the U.N. Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and the Paris Climate Agreement, notes ARC.
