“CONTINUED involvement in Unesco is not in the national interest of the United States,” announced State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce this week. The announcement should not come as a surprise. America had exited the UN cultural and education body during Donald Trump’s first presidency (and even earlier), before the decision was reversed under the Joe Biden administration. The latest move echoes Trump’s lack of faith in multilateral organisations and soft power in general. Unesco has been accused by the Trump administration of promoting “divisive social and cultural causes” besides having an “outsized focus” on the SDGs, which Bruce described as “a globalist, ideological agenda for international development at odds with our America First foreign policy”.

Unesco’s mandate includes safeguarding selected heritage sites as diverse as the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the newly added Xixia Imperial Tombs in China. With regard to the latter country, the US departure from yet another UN agency spells opportunity for its biggest rival. Commenting on Trump’s latest move, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said: “It’s the third US withdrawal from Unesco and the country hasn’t paid arrears for a long time. This is not what a major country should do.”

Although America’s contribution to Unesco’s budget is eight per cent, its arrears are, in fact, in the millions. Since withdrawing and then rejoining the organisation is a recurrent event, Unesco says it has made arrangements to make up for the shortfall, so that the agency can keep doing its work. According to Unesco’s director general, “The decreasing trend in the financial contribution of the US has been offset.” In fact, it has been pointed out that donations from private parties have doubled since 2018.

Contributions to Unesco by member states perhaps best reveals what soft power is and what it can do. The level of sway over built and natural heritage that Unesco is mandated to safeguard helps countries push state versions of history to dominate the global narrative. It would come as no surprise if China, an ascendant power, would want to exert its influence from this platform of soft power to promote its own worldview in the aftermath of the US exit. In being part of Unesco, countries look beyond the preservation of their heritage.

A recent report in the New York Times has emphasised, for instance, how China “has also lobbied heavily for World Heritage designations and is jockeying to surpass Italy as the country with the most culturally significant sites”.

Contributing to Unesco reveals what soft power can do.

The same NYT report also raises other questions. For instance, it says that the Chinese authorities in Lhasa erected two Chinese-style pavilions at a palace complex — a World Heritage Site of spiritual importance to followers of the Dalai Lama. It points out that countries have to inform Unesco before carrying out changes at such sites, which was not done in this case. Reportedly, other sites in the process of being designated are in embattled places like Xinjiang, where many locals fear that the push towards tourism will diminish their religious and cultural heritage by commercialising the sites.

As the US scales back its presence in multilateral institutions, the latter, including the UN, are being transformed. Ascendant economies will see this as an opportunity for furthering their interests and staffing vacant positions with their own nationals. In Unesco’s case, it raises an interesting question: will the idea of ‘mainstream’ history and the narratives that acco­mpany it be simi­­-larly transfor­med to be less white and Western?

In fact, a pessimistic outlook would suggest that the names and labels of multilateral organisations are up for sale. If this is so, then any legitimacy conferred by control or designations of organisations like Unesco is likely to be short-lived.

The world is increasingly aware that the post-World War II liberal order from which these organisations emerged is a thing of the past. It’s an open question as to what happens to the trappings of that order, the organisations, the treaties, the agreements that have been left behind. Those that need to believe in them still do, but many now and even more in ensuing generations will know that the order of the past is done and that we all await the establishment of a new order. In the meantime, it is perhaps the human condition to continue to make guesses as to what of our present lives will remain and what will be gone forever.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2025