The United States announced this week it again will pull out of the U.N.’s educational, scientific and cultural agency because it believes that its involvement is not in the country’s national interest and that the agency promotes anti-Israel speech.

The decision comes two years after the United States rejoined UNESCO after leaving in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first administration.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the withdrawal was linked to UNESCO’s perceived agenda to “advance divisive social and cultural causes.”

She added in a statement that UNESCO’s decision “to admit the ‘State of Palestine’ as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.”

The decision, first reported by the New York Post, will take effect at the end of December 2026.

This will be the third time that the United States has left UNESCO, which is based in Paris, and the second time during a Trump administration. It last rejoined the agency in 2023, under the Biden administration.

UNESCO’s Director General Audrey Azoulay denied accusations of anti-Israel bias.

“These claims … contradict the reality of UNESCO’s efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism,” she said.

The United States previously pulled out of UNESCO under the Reagan administration in 1984 because it viewed the agency as mismanaged, corrupt and used to advance the interests of the Soviet Union. It rejoined in 2003 during George W. Bush’s presidency.