Trump Cuts Ties With UNRWA, Calls For a Review of US Funding For The United Nations

President Donald Trump recently signed executive orders freezing funding to United Nations (UN) agencies like the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and reviewing US funding for the UN more broadly. 

“I’ve always felt that the UN has tremendous potential, it’s not living up to that potential right now,” said President Trump. 

“There are great hopes for it, but it's not being well run, to be honest…they got to get their act together,” said Trump as he signed the order. 

When asked what it would take for the UN to get their act together, Trump responded the UN should “be fair to countries that deserve fairness.”

“The (UN) has countries that are outliers, that are very bad, that are almost preferred,” alleged Trump. “They’re going to end up losing a lot of countries, they're going to end up losing their credibility like other organizations and then they’re going to be nothing.”

Conservatives have long criticized the UN and its agencies for harboring anti-American sentiment and undermining US interests. 

Specific agencies like UNRWA have also been recently criticized for their role in supporting the US’ enemies, such as when UNRWA hiring Hamas fighters in the Gaza strip. 

Israel reported having uncovered that twelve members of UNRWA were directly involved in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel while claiming around 1,200 of UNRWA’s roughly 12,000 Gaza employees have links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Conservatives have since then called for an end of US aid for UNRWA and, which amounts to billions of dollars in assistance, and reconsidering the US’ overarching relationship with the UN. 

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) argued “the U.S. MUST reconsider its relationship with the @UN,” adding that “it's disgusting to think a single U.S. taxpayer dollar could have funded these evils.”

However, despite signing the executive order putting the UN-US relationship on thin ice, Trump was hopeful that the UN could be rescued. 

“The potential of the UN is fantastic, if properly run, so we’ll see what happens,” concluded Trump.