He added it was "unsurprising, however, that the Administration would choose to leave the Council at the same time as it is perpetrating human rights abuses against immigrant children within our own borders, a policy that the United Nations and other countries have rightly condemned." The foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, dismissed the U.S. criticism that the council is problematic because it includes China and other authoritarian governments, saying that claim is “a total disregard of facts.” ‘’Everyone without bias can see clearly China’s great achievement and progress in terms of human rights,” Geng said. “The Human Rights Council is a poor defender of human rights.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, appearing alongside Haley at the State Department, said there was no doubt that the council once had a “noble vision.”

“We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of human rights,” Haley said. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley delivers remarks to the press together with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, announcing the U.S.'s withdrawal from the U.N's Human Rights Council at the Department of State in Washington, U.S., June 19, 2018. The release from Caso came on the same day Trump reversed course on the new policy of separating parents and children after they crossed the border; that policy took effect because of the administration’s zero-tolerance policy , which resulted in prosecutions for all border crossers. She had been threatening the pullout since last year unless the council made changes advocated by the U.S.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called the U.S. decision “courageous,” calling it “an unequivocal statement that enough is enough.”

The move extends a broader Trump administration pattern of stepping back from international agreements and forums under the president’s “America First” policy. Since January 2017, it has announced its withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, left the U.N. educational and cultural organization and pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. A pullout could be largely symbolic: The United States' current term on the council ends next year, when it could revert to the observer status held by other countries that are not members. The official publication of China’s top anti-graft watchdog said in a commentary on Wednesday the U.S. decision to leave the council “has put the American peoples’ boastful image of being a defender of human rights on the verge of collapse”. The U.S., as at other U.N. organizations, is Israel’s biggest defender.
China expresses regret over the United States' decision to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council.