The United States withdraws from UNESCO again

AFP

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, p. 4

Paris. The United States government announced yesterday its withdrawal from UNESCO, arguing that the UN cultural and educational agency is biased against Israel and promotes divisive causes, a decision the organization regretted.

This is the second time President Donald Trump has ordered a withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), after alleging anti-Israeli bias in 2018. His Democratic successor, Joe Biden (2021–2025), later reinstated the United States' membership.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay of France said she deeply regretted President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the organization again .

However, this announcement was expected, and UNESCO has prepared for it , he said, noting that it is better financially protected than other UN agencies, and noting that the US contribution of $75 million annually represents only 8 percent of the organization's total budget.

This decision by Washington, which will take effect at the end of 2026, follows a request by Trump in February to review US commitments to various UN bodies.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce described UNESCO as promoting divisive social and cultural causes and overly focused on UN sustainability goals, which she called a globalist ideological agenda .

Bruce also questioned UNESCO's admission of Palestine as a state, a decision that contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization .

Following Washington's decision, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar welcomed the US withdrawal from UNESCO, a necessary step designed to promote justice and Tel Aviv's right to fair treatment within the UN system .

For her part, Director Audrey Azoulay responded that these arguments contradict the reality of UNESCO-led efforts, especially in Holocaust education and the fight against anti-Semitism .

Three retirements in 40 years

This is the third time Washington has left UNESCO in 40 years.

In October 2017, during his first term, Trump announced his country's withdrawal, denouncing the institution's persistent anti-Israeli bias . This withdrawal, followed by Israel's, took effect in December 2018.

UNESCO had particularly provoked Israeli ire in July 2017 by inscribing the Old City of Hebron on the list of World Heritage in danger and by characterizing Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, as an Islamic city, while the Jews, a few hundred of whom now live entrenched among 200,000 Palestinians, claim a presence there of 4,000 years.

French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his unwavering support for Paris-based UNESCO yesterday in a message on the social network X.

During the Biden administration, the United States returned to UNESCO and pledged to fully repay, in a phased payment, its arrears since 2011, amounting to $619 million.

Following Palestine's admission to UNESCO that year, Washington had ceased all funding under a US law that prohibits funding to an organization that includes the Palestinian state.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan had also withdrawn US participation, citing the organization's alleged uselessness and budgetary overruns. Washington rejoined in October 2003.

Even if it leaves UNESCO's umbrella organization, the United States will remain a member of the World Heritage Committee, which votes to designate sites protected by the organization, a source familiar with the matter within the organization said.

Accustomed to Washington's twists and turns, UNESCO has made efforts in recent years to reduce its dependence on US funding by increasing the proportion of voluntary contributions, which doubled under Audrey Azoulay's leadership.

This decision, however, will affect our activities in the coming years or force us to seek other sources of financing , the source close to the matter added.

From the Editorial Staff

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, p. 4

Leading actor Gastón Melo passed away last Monday at the age of 87. The news was released by the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature.

Originally from Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, he was a central figure in Mexican theater for more than six decades and a member of the National Theater Company's stable cast since 2016.

He studied Spanish literature at UNAM, philosophy at the University of Montreal, and theater arts at both INBAL and the Seki Sano Academy.

Her career began in the late 1950s in the collective Poesía en Voz Alta, a space for experimentation in which she shared the stage with Juan José Gurrola, Nancy Cárdenas, Ofelia Guilmáin, Juan Ibáñez, Ana Ofelia Murguía and Raúl Dantes.

He participated in emblematic productions such as A White Horse (1959), directed by René Anselmo; The Man Who Made It Rain (1959), directed by Xavier Rojas, and Spring Awakening (1960), with Juan José Gurrola.

Throughout his career, he collaborated on nearly 20 plays and more than 50 films shot in Mexico, Europe, and the United States.

From the Editorial Staff

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, p. 4

The new Internal Regulations of the federal Ministry of Culture (SC) were published yesterday in the Official Gazette of the Federation . The decree, signed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, repeals the regulations published on November 8, 2016.

Compared to the previous regulations, which considered 16 administrative units, the new regulations stipulate 12, including the Directorate of Cultural Diffusion and the Unit of Living Cultures, Intangible Heritage, and Interculturality, directed by anthropologist Diego Prieto.

Living Cultures is listed as the fourth unit, just below the Undersecretariat of Cultural Development and the Administration and Finance, and Legal Affairs units.

Its tasks include proposing and coordinating public policies on living cultures, intangible cultural heritage and interculturality, with a territorial, participatory, inclusive and gender-sensitive approach , as well as strengthening cultural actions in communities with high rates of marginalization, poverty or violence through community-based and citizen participation programs .

Among nine other sections, it also states that it will promote collaboration with the National Institutes of Anthropology and History, Fine Arts and Literature, and Indigenous Peoples, and other agencies, in pursuit of joint programs to benefit living, indigenous, and Afro-Mexican cultures .

From the Editorial Staff

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, p. 4

The poet, editor, and essayist José de Jesús Sampedro passed away yesterday, according to the Mexican Academy of Language. Sampedro edited the well-known Zacatecas literary magazine Dos Filos for five decades.

The workshop facilitator and teacher was born in Zacatecas in 1950. Dos filos began publication in 1974 and captured a landscape of narrative, poetry, countercultural movements, essays, film criticism, music, and visual arts.

Sampedro earned a bachelor's degree in economics and was an active member of the Mexican communist movement. He contributed to publications such as La Jornada Semanal , Los Universitarios , El Buscón , Casa del Tiempo , University of Mexico , El Gallo Ilustrado , Sábado , and La Cultura en México .

The cultural disseminator won the 1975 Aguascalientes Poetry Awards for his poetry collection Un (ejemplo) salto de gato pinto , and the 2018 Ibero-American Ramón López Velarde Award for promoting the literature of Mexico and Latin America and, mainly, for his dedication to and dissemination of the work of the author of La Suave Patria .

Sampedro's published texts include If He Enters, I Enter (1981), The Star, the Fool, the Lovers (1985), and Not Being and Being (2012). He was a corresponding academic in Zacatecas at the Mexican Academy of Language.

▲ London's Royal Opera House welcomed the National Ballet of Japan, which will perform Giselle . The company, directed by Miyako Yoshida, was founded in 1997 and has a wide repertoire of classical dance, including classic works such as Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker , as well as contemporary works by Nacho Duato, David Bintley and Christopher Wheeldon. In the image, principal dancers Shun Izawa and Yui Yonezawa during a rehearsal yesterday at the legendary British stage. Photo: Afp

La Jornada Newspaper, Wednesday, July 23, 2025, p. 4